Graduate Search Consultant

Summit Rec2Rec; Bradford; On-site; GBP 22,000 - 32,000; Full time

Job summary

Summit Rec2Rec is partnering with a specialist executive search firm to recruit a Graduate Executive Search Consultant in Private Equity.

You’ll be trained in retained search: market mapping, direct approaches to CEOs and Partners, and end-to-end search management for demanding institutional clients.

No switchboard cold-calling; you’ll learn credible conversations with senior leaders while building your network across sectors and geographies.

Qualifications

• A strong academic record and precise writing.
• Genuine intellectual curiosity about business and leadership.
• Resilience and comfort with rejection in long-cycle processes.
• Willingness to build a professional network over time.

Responsibilities

• Researching and mapping target companies and executives
• Identifying and approaching senior leaders for live mandates
• Managing candidate pipelines through structured assessment
• Building your own network within a sector or geography over time
• Working alongside senior consultants on live, high-value searches
• Supporting the wider leadership team with events and initiatives

Skills

Strong academic record

Written communication

Resilience

Confidence with senior outreach

Goal-oriented

Job description

Graduate Executive Search Consultant – Private Equity

Our client is a specialist executive search firm working exclusively within Private Equity — placing C-suite leaders into PE-backed portfolio companies, and investment professionals directly into PE firms. Sectors span commercial services, industrial services, HVAC and building automation, largely across the US market, with a strong reputation for de-risking high-stakes leadership hires.

This is a rare chance to learn executive search from the ground up, in one of the most commercially sophisticated corners of recruitment — where the stakes, fees and calibre of client conversation are a world away from high-volume agency work.

The Role

You'll be trained from day one in retained executive search: market mapping, direct approaches to senior executives who aren't job-hunting, structured assessment, and managing a search end-to-end for demanding institutional clients. No switchboard cold-calling — you'll learn how to have credible conversations with CEOs and Partners.

You’ll be:

• Researching and mapping target companies and executives


• Identifying and approaching senior leaders for live mandates


• Managing candidate pipelines through structured assessment


• Building your own network within a sector or geography over time


• Working alongside senior consultants on live, high-value searches


• Support the wider senior leadership team on broader business initiatives — organising conferences, events, and their high-performing podcast to attract more senior leaders"

What We’re Looking For

• A strong academic record, you’ll need to think and write with precision


• Genuine intellectual curiosity about business, leadership and what makes companies succeed


• Resilience and comfort with rejection — long-cycle, high-reward, not instant gratification


• Confidence to call senior people who have every reason to say no
  
• Goal Orientated - part of the interview process is to share long term goals and aspirations and to provide a breakdown as to how you plan to achieve this