For the appointments a job advert will not solve.

ProTalent Professional is the retained and executive search side of ProTalent. It exists for the appointments a job advert will not solve.

Partner and director level hires in accountancy practice. Senior finance leadership in commerce and industry. And any role where the person you actually want is already employed, well looked after, and not reading job adverts.

Every search is built around the client rather than the discipline. What changes is the market we go into. The method stays the same.

Why retained rather than contingency

Contingency recruitment works well for roles with a healthy pool of active candidates. Most senior appointments are not that.

When the right person is already in a good job, someone has to go and find them, understand what would genuinely move them, and have a conversation that has nothing to do with a vacancy. That takes time, and nobody does it properly on the chance of a fee.

A retained search means:

• One recruiter, working exclusively on your role, with a defined start and finish.
• Access to people who are not applying for anything, approached directly and discreetly.
• A mapped view of your market before anyone is contacted, so you know what exists before you commit.
• Staged fees tied to milestones, so the commitment runs both ways.
• Honest feedback, including when the market says the role needs to change.

Who we work with

• Independent accountancy practices and mid-tier firms
• National networks and consolidating groups
• Owner-managed and scaling businesses
• PE-backed and VC-backed companies

Accountancy practice is home ground and where the depth is greatest. Senior finance appointments in commerce and industry sit alongside it, and senior tax mandates are handled nationally.

The process

1. Briefing. A proper conversation about the role, the team, the culture and what will make the right person say yes. Usually this is where a brief gets sharpened.

2. Market intelligence. Establishing who exists in the market, what they are paid and how many would realistically move, before anyone is approached. Available as a standalone report if you want to test whether a role is fillable before committing to a search.

3. Direct approach. Discreet, individual contact with the people who fit. No mailshots and no advertising unless you want it.

4. Shortlist and interview. Every candidate screened and assessed against your brief before they reach you, with written assessments, interview structure and technical questions provided.

5. Offer and onboarding. Support through negotiation, counter-offers, resignation and the first weeks in post, backed by a placement guarantee.

What's different here

You brief the person doing the work. We only ever run a small number of retained assignments at a time. There is no researcher, no account manager and no handover. One specialist working in partnership with you from beginning to end.

Specialist, not generalist. Twenty-one years recruiting in accountancy practice, and a database built over that time. We know which firms are growing, which are losing people, and where they move.

A Certified B Corporation™. Which means how the work gets done is measured, not just whether the role gets filled.

Fees you can see up front. Structured, staged, agreed before anything starts.

Straight answers. If a role isn't fillable as written, or retained isn't the right route, we'll say so.

Let's talk

If you have an appointment coming up that you suspect will be difficult, that conversation is free and takes fifteen minutes. We'll tell you honestly whether it needs a search, a report, or neither.

Lydia Sinclair FREC, Founder · lydia@protalent.co · 01273 491 852

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