Job DescriptionThe Executive Recruiter owns those searches end to end: sourcing, assessing, closing, and making sure the hire succeeds. This is not a coordinator role or a requisition manager. It is a search professional who is trusted by senior leaders to find the right person, often someone who is not looking, and bring them in.
We are looking for someone who can prove it. Come with examples of searches you completed in the last three years, and with evidence that your network across IT services is real, current, and produces candidates other recruiters cannot reach. Come fluent in AI tools and clear on how you use them to protect your time, so that your hours go to relationships and judgment, not to research and administration.
If your reputation rests on completed searches and relationships people will vouch for, this role was written for you.
Why This Role, Why Now
Senior hires carry outsized weight in a business that is changing this fast. The leaders who join in the next 12 to 24 months will shape Perficient's offerings, client relationships, and delivery model as AI changes what clients buy. Several things make the work harder and more valuable at once:
- The best leaders in IT services are rarely on the market, so reaching them depends on trusted relationships, not job postings
- Searches span functions, levels, and geographies, with VP-and-above talent needed across the U.S., India, and Latin America
- Competition for leaders who combine domain depth with AI fluency is intense, and compensation expectations move quickly
- AI tools now do much of the research and administration that used to consume a recruiter's week, so the people who use them well can run more searches at higher quality
Perficient wants an Executive Recruiter who treats those tools as leverage and spends the saved time where it counts: in conversations with the people worth hiring.
ResponsibilitiesWhat You'll Own
This role is built around three principles. They are not values on a wall. They are the job.
01 Own the Outcome - Completed searches, slate quality, and speed
- Own VP-and-above searches from intake to start date. Define the role and success profile with the hiring leader, map the market, build the slate, run the process, negotiate, and close
- Deliver slates that hiring leaders accept. Measure yourself on time to slate, time to fill, offer acceptance, and whether the hire is still succeeding in the seat at 12 months
- Advise hiring leaders like a search consultant, not an order taker. Push back on unrealistic profiles, bring market and compensation intelligence, and tell leaders what they need to hear
- Lead offer strategy and negotiation for senior roles in partnership with Total Rewards, including how to position Perficient against competing offers
- Keep every search moving. No search goes quiet without the hiring leader and the candidate knowing why and what comes next
02 Be a Multiplier - Network, candidate experience, and leadership partnership
- Run an active network across IT services, including consulting firms, systems integrators, technology and platform companies, and the hyperscaler and partner ecosystem. Keep it current, give value back to it, and use it to reach people who are not looking
- Deliver an experience senior candidates remember: discreet, well-informed, honest about the role and the company, and respectful of their time, whether they are hired or not
- Build talent communities for the leadership roles Perficient will need next, so the pipeline exists before the requisition opens
- Partner with the Global Head of Talent Acquisition, Business Aligned TA Leads, and Regional TA Leads, and share market intelligence that improves hiring across the team
- Represent Perficient's employer brand at the senior level, making the case for why a leader should join and what they will be able to build here
03 Operate with Discipline - Time, tools, and rigor
- Manage multiple concurrent searches with a clear pipeline for each, so priorities, next steps, and risks are visible at any time
- Use AI tools across the search lifecycle, including market mapping, research, outreach drafting, candidate and interview synthesis, scheduling, and reporting, and keep measuring what each tool saves
- Protect quality and fairness. Judgment on candidates stays with you and the hiring leaders, AI outputs are checked, and every step complies with local employment law and data privacy requirements
- Keep the ATS and search records accurate and current, and report progress to the Global Head of Talent Acquisition on a regular cadence
- Hold absolute discretion. Senior searches involve confidential information about candidates, leaders, and the company, and you protect all of it
What Success Looks Like
At 12 months, this leader will be measured against:
- Searches completed on or ahead of plan, with first slates that hiring leaders accept
- Senior hires who are performing and retained, with offer acceptance and 12-month retention tracked and improving
- A clear share of hires sourced through your own network, not job boards or inbound applications
- Measurable time saved through AI workflows, redirected to more searches and more candidate conversations
- Hiring leaders who bring you into the problem early, before the job description is written
What We Ask You to Bring
We hire for this role on evidence. Please be ready to share the following, anonymized where confidentiality requires it. We will verify through references with hiring leaders and candidates.
- Completed searches from the last three years. For each, the role and level, function, geography, when you opened and closed it, time to slate and time to fill, how the candidate was sourced, the outcome, and whether the hire stayed and succeeded. Name a hiring leader who can speak to it
- Proof of your network across IT services. Three to five searches where your own relationships produced the slate or the hire, and the ability to describe, in the interview, where senior talent sits across IT services and which leaders you would call first for a given search
- A walkthrough of your AI-enabled workflow. Which tools you use, what you automated, how many hours it saves, how you check quality, and a real example from a recent search
QualificationsWhat We're Looking For
Non-Negotiable
10+ years of executive search or senior recruiting experience, with a record of VP-and-above and C-level searches
- A portfolio of completed searches in the last three years, with outcomes you can document and references who will confirm them
- A strong, active network across IT services, including consulting, systems integration, and technology companies, that you can demonstrate rather than describe
- Hands-on fluency with AI tools in recruiting workflows. You have deployed them, measured the results, and can explain where they help and where they do not
- Strong time and priority management across concurrent searches, with a system you can show
- Executive presence and the judgment to advise senior leaders candidly, including on compensation and market realities
- Experience negotiating senior offers and managing candidates through competing offers
Strongly Preferred
- Experience in a PE-backed or high-growth consulting or technology environment, and with the offer structures senior candidates expect there
- Search experience in India and Latin America as well as the U.S.
- A background in retained search, or in-house executive recruiting at a consulting or technology services firm
- A record of building talent communities and pipelines ahead of need
- Experience coaching recruiters on senior-level practices
This Role Is Not For You If
- Your experience is mainly requisition coordination or administration. This role requires originating and closing senior searches
- You cannot share completed searches from the last three years, or most of your results are older than that
- Your network lives mostly in databases and LinkedIn rather than in relationships you can call this week
- You treat AI as optional, or as a replacement for judgment. This role requires active use of the tools and accountability for what they produce
- You wait for the brief instead of shaping it. Hiring leaders here expect a search partner who pushes back and brings market intelligence
- You struggle to prioritize across several live searches. Time discipline is part of the job
Perficient full-time employees receive complete and competitive benefits. We offer a collaborative work environment, competitive compensation, generous work/life opportunities and an outstanding benefits package that includes paid time off plus holidays. In addition, all colleagues are eligible for a number of rewards and recognition programs including billable bonus opportunities. Encouraging a healthy work/life balance and providing our colleagues great benefits are just part of what makes Perficient a great place to work.
The salary range for this position takes into consideration a variety of factors, including but not limited to skill sets, level of experience, applicable office location, training, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs. The new hire salary range displays the minimum and maximum salary targets for this position across all US locations, and the range has not been adjusted for any specific state differentials. It is not typical for a candidate to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent on the unique facts and circumstances regarding each candidate.
Information regarding the benefits available for this position are in our benefits overview.
Disclaimer: The above statements are not intended to be a complete statement of job content, rather to act as a guide to the essential functions performed by the employee assigned to this classification. Management retains the discretion to add or change the duties of the position at any time.
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