Executive Search · Full Retained Search
Full Retained Search
Our flagship engagement for the most consequential hires a public-media organization will ever make: CEO, general manager, president, executive director, and the senior officers who report to them. Six structured phases, 90 to 120 days from kickoff to start date, led from first stakeholder call to first day on the job by a senior partner with deep knowledge of the field.
When to choose this
A Full Retained Search is the right engagement when the role carries broad organizational impact and the wrong hire would cost the station years. That typically means CEO, general manager, station president, executive director, or a senior officer reporting to one.
Three questions help decide. Is this the seat that sets strategic direction for the organization? Will the candidate pool need to be national, not regional? Does the next hire need to be vetted thoroughly enough that the board can speak to it with confidence in any future conversation? If the answer is yes to any one of them, this is the engagement.
What you receive
A written position brief
Developed from stakeholder interviews with the board, search committee, and senior leadership. The brief becomes the recruiting document, the screening rubric, and the anchor for every conversation about the search.
A diverse, qualified candidate pool
Typically 15 to 20 candidates carried into structured screening, narrowed to about eight semifinalists for committee interviews and three finalists for in-person rounds. Every stage is documented.
Our proprietary attribute matrix
A scorecard built around the position brief, ranking every interviewed candidate against the same set of skills and attributes. The matrix is a unique component of the Livingston process, and one of the most valuable artifacts a search committee receives.
Interview management end to end
Drafted question banks, scheduled rounds, candidate communications, finalist itineraries, and on-the-day facilitation. The committee listens and evaluates while we run the process.
References, collateral references, and background check
Both the references a candidate provides and the ones they did not, drawing on our network of past colleagues, supervisors, and peers across public media. A full third-party background check on the finalist is included at no additional cost.
Offer letter, negotiation, and transition support
We help draft the offer letter or contract, support the back-and-forth of negotiation, and remain available to the incoming leader through the first weeks on the job.
The six phases
1. Preparation
We sit with stakeholders one by one and in small groups: the search committee, sitting and outgoing leadership, the senior team, the board chair. The conversations have three purposes. Understand where the organization is, ascertain where it needs to go, and build the comprehensive list of skills, experience, and attributes that the position brief is anchored to.
2. Recruitment and sourcing
The position brief becomes the center of an outreach campaign with three streams. A national advertising plan placed against sources we know to deliver public-media-aware candidates. A targeted email to the more than 2,200 highly engaged subscribers of our Public Media Job Alerts database. And direct outreach from the personal networks we have built across the field for nearly three decades. EEO data is collected and managed consistent with FCC search practices.
3. Screening and evaluation
We review every résumé, identify a broad group of 15 to 20 candidates from diverse backgrounds, and conduct structured screening interviews. Each candidate is scored against the attributes from the position brief. The output is a profile per candidate and a side-by-side matrix the committee uses to compose the finalist pool.
4. Semifinalist interviews by videoconference
The committee selects approximately eight candidates for a first round of interviews. We prepare a complete candidate report, draft the questions in partnership with the committee, manage the videoconference platform on the day, and ask the prepared questions so committee members can take notes and listen. Roughly three finalists emerge from this round.
5. Finalist interviews on site
We draft the day-by-day schedule, prepare a final candidate report, and travel to the station to support the in-person rounds. Every relevant stakeholder is invited to participate, and each finalist gets a tailored itinerary. After each meeting, participants submit an anonymized survey; responses are compiled and returned to the search committee in time for the decision.
6. References, background check, and offer
We work through both the references the candidate provided and the collateral references our network surfaces, current and former co-workers, supervisors, and industry colleagues. A third-party background check covering criminal record, driving record, and credit is completed on the finalist at no additional cost. With diligence complete, we help draft the offer, support negotiation, and remain a resource through the candidate's transition.
Timeline
A Full Retained Search runs 90 to 120 days from kickoff to start date for most engagements. Preparation and the launch of recruiting together take three to five weeks. Screening runs in parallel with the closing weeks of recruiting. Semifinalist and finalist interviews together typically span four to six weeks. The remainder of the window covers references, background check, offer, negotiation, and the candidate's transition out of their current role.
Diversity outcomes
Across all of our searches, 85% of finalist pools (the three to five candidates a client interviews in person) and 65% of selected candidates have been people of color, women, or both. These outcomes are not the product of a separate "diversity track." They are the product of the way every Livingston search is designed: recruiting broadly, applying structured, consistent screening, and partnering with affinity networks across public radio and television.
What makes our process different
Three things. The first is that a senior partner leads every engagement, from the first stakeholder call to the offer letter, and is never reassigned to a junior associate. The second is the depth of our public-media network: the largest résumé database in the field, more than 2,200 engaged Job Alerts subscribers, and personal relationships built over nearly three decades. The third is the attribute matrix. It is the artifact a board chair can hold up two years after the hire and say, here is exactly how we made this decision.
Begin a conversation about your search.
We respond to every inquiry personally within two business days.