How We Used My Recruiter Jobs to Map the Next Chapter of Alexander Executive Search

Why understanding the recruitment talent market is just as important as understanding your clients.

By Keith Fox | Founder, Alexander Executive Search

Growth is something every recruitment business talks about. Opening new offices, entering new markets, increasing headcount and building larger teams all sound exciting. But there is a significant difference between wanting to expand and understanding how to expand successfully.

At Alexander Executive Search (AES), we have been examining what the next stage of our business should look like.

Having established our position within the US engineering and infrastructure executive search market, particularly across Florida and the East Coast, our ambition is to build a business that can scale without compromising the quality of our service.

That means moving beyond a founder-led operation toward a structured executive search firm with dedicated consultants, research associates, leadership development and a clear route for career progression.

One resource we have used to help inform that thinking is My Recruiter Jobs (MRJ).

What started as an examination of the recruitment employment market became a useful exercise in understanding how we should structure our own expansion.

Looking at Recruitment Through a Different Lens

As executive search consultants, we spend considerable time helping clients understand their leadership requirements.

We examine organizational structures, compensation, succession planning, market conditions and the competencies required for long-term success.

Yet recruitment firms do not always apply the same level of analysis to their own businesses.

We wanted to avoid that mistake.

Rather than immediately deciding how many people to employ, we started by examining the wider recruitment market.

MRJ provided a useful starting point.

By reviewing recruitment consultant vacancies, salary ranges, specialties and seniority levels, we could examine how other recruitment businesses position their opportunities and attract talent.

The objective wasn’t to copy another recruitment firm’s structure. It was to understand the market before making our own decisions.

Understanding the Talent We Would Need

One of the most important questions facing AES was whether our next hires should be experienced billing consultants, business development professionals or candidate-focused researchers.

These are very different roles, requiring different competencies and offering different contributions to a growing executive search business.

Through MRJ, we could explore how recruitment businesses advertise opportunities across engineering, construction, infrastructure and executive search.

We paid particular attention to the distinction between client-facing consultants and research-focused positions.

That distinction helped shape the operating model we are developing.

Our proposed structure brings together experienced executive search consultants responsible for client relationships and assignments, supported by research associates responsible for talent identification, market mapping, candidate engagement and assessment coordination.

For us, this is about creating genuine specialization.

We want consultants spending more time understanding clients and developing relationships, while associates have the resources and training to deliver exceptional candidate research.

Neither function should be treated as secondary to the other.

Using Salary Intelligence to Build a Sustainable Model

Compensation is one of the biggest considerations when expanding a recruitment business.

It is relatively easy to calculate what an additional consultant might bill. It is considerably harder to establish what that consultant will cost, how long they will take to become productive and what support they will require.

MRJ gave us a way to examine advertised compensation across different recruitment roles and levels of experience.

We could compare the positioning of junior recruitment opportunities with senior consultant and management vacancies, while also examining how different specialist markets attract experienced recruiters.

This information helped us think more carefully about our own compensation philosophy.

Our intention is to build a structure that rewards commercial performance while recognizing the contribution of research, delivery quality and long-term client relationships.

We also believe that career progression should be visible from the outset.

A research associate should understand what is required to become a senior associate, consultant or eventually a practice leader.

Similarly, successful consultants should have a route into leadership without necessarily having to leave the business to progress.

Salary advertisements alone cannot determine an effective compensation structure, but they provide valuable context when combined with financial modeling and direct market research.

Why We Are Focusing on the United States

Our expansion strategy remains centered on the US market, particularly privately owned engineering and infrastructure businesses.

We believe this segment presents an opportunity for a specialist executive search firm that understands the commercial and leadership challenges facing growing engineering companies.

Many of these organizations are highly successful technically but face difficult questions around succession, leadership development, operational expansion and the recruitment of senior executives.

Our objective is to become a trusted long-term search partner to these businesses.

We are planning a structure built around a growing operational presence in Florida.

MRJ’s recruitment market coverage, including opportunities connected to the US recruitment sector, has been useful in helping us consider the experience and specialties we may need as that structure develops.

Of course, advertised salaries are not a substitute for detailed local compensation research. Any Florida hiring decisions will require separate analysis of US salaries, benefits, employment costs and market conditions.

But understanding the broader recruitment talent landscape is still an important part of the process.

Building a Business, Not Just Increasing Headcount

Perhaps the biggest lesson from this exercise is that expansion should not simply be measured by the number of people employed.

A recruitment company with ten employees is not necessarily more successful than one with three.

What matters is productivity, profitability, client retention, delivery quality and the ability to maintain standards as the business grows.

At AES, we have spent years developing an assessment-led executive search methodology.

Our process incorporates behavioral assessment, competency benchmarking, structured candidate evaluation, verified references and detailed candidate presentations.

We are proud of the fact that 96% of our placements remain in position after 12 months.

As we expand, protecting those standards is essential.

We do not want to build a business where growth means abandoning the processes that made us successful.

Instead, we want to create a structure in which every new employee understands our methodology and has the training, tools and support to deliver it consistently.

That requires careful recruitment, realistic financial planning and a clear understanding of the roles we need.

Our Roadmap Toward 2032

We have established a longer-term objective for AES, with 2032 representing an important milestone in our development.

Our immediate priority is preparation.

Throughout 2027, we intend to concentrate on strengthening our financial position, developing our systems, refining our training program and building the capital required for expansion.

From 2028 onward, our ambition is to begin scaling the business in a controlled and sustainable way.

That means recruiting the right people at the right time, developing future leaders internally and gradually reducing our dependence on the founder for every aspect of delivery.

The ultimate objective is an executive search business capable of operating consistently, profitably and independently, while maintaining the personal relationships and service quality our clients expect.

MRJ has been one of the resources informing our thinking, alongside our own experience, financial modeling and understanding of the US executive search market.

A Useful Resource for Recruitment Business Owners

What we found particularly interesting about My Recruiter Jobs is that its value extends beyond candidates actively looking for their next recruitment position.

For recruitment business owners, publicly advertised vacancies can provide a useful window into the market.

They can help identify emerging specialties, understand how competing employers describe roles, examine compensation expectations and consider how recruitment career structures are evolving.

Naturally, advertised vacancies only tell part of the story. They do not reveal actual earnings, employee retention, productivity or the profitability of the businesses advertising.

Nevertheless, they are a useful source of evidence when approached with the right questions.

For us, the important question was never simply, “Who can we hire?”

It was, “What sort of company are we trying to build, and what people will help us get there?”

That is a much more valuable starting point.

Final Thoughts

There is a principle we regularly discuss with our clients at Alexander Executive Search:

Good hiring decisions start with understanding the business, not simply finding an available candidate.

The same principle applies when building a recruitment company.

Before expanding, understand your market. Before hiring, define the role. Before offering compensation, understand the economics. And before building a team, decide what the organization should look like five years from now.

Using resources such as My Recruiter Jobs has helped us bring additional market context to those decisions.

Our expansion is still a journey, but we believe the foundations of a successful executive search business are established long before the next consultant joins.

Growth should be designed, not improvised.

About Alexander Executive Search

Alexander Executive Search is a specialist retained executive search firm focused on leadership appointments across the US engineering, infrastructure and construction sectors.

Through behavioral assessment, competency benchmarking and structured executive evaluation, AES helps organizations make better-informed leadership hiring decisions.

Website: www.aesrecruitment.com
MRJ: www.myrecruiterjobs.com