Professional website for executive recruiters & executive search firms

The German market for executive search, placement and temporary staffing sits, according to BDU and iGZ/BAP analyses, at a combined annual revenue of well over 40 billion euros - with three very different business models (classical placement, retained executive search, temporary staffing under AÜG) and a heterogeneous provider landscape: the large international search firms, mid-sized executive search boutiques, specialised contingent recruiters per industry, AÜG staffing companies with a placement arm and a broad layer of solo executive recruiters following a corporate exit from HR or search roles. What they all share: the title "Personalberater:in" is not a protected profession, anyone may use it, and the delimitation from opaque "headhunter" presences takes place to a significant extent on the website - long before a client picks up the phone.

Buying behaviour on the client side has become noticeably more systematic in recent years. HR leadership, CFO, CHRO or owners research on Google and LinkedIn before any first contact: which industry and function depth is genuinely served? Is the work retained or contingent? Does an AÜG licence from the Federal Employment Agency exist, or is this pure placement? Which association bindings (BDU, AESC, ERA, iGZ/BAP) and which time-to-shortlist and retention metrics are disclosed? In parallel, candidates at senior and C-level examine the same website and check whether the fee logic is clearly on the client side, how the candidate pool is managed under GDPR and how the firm describes its AGG-compliant search process. A website that appears here with "we find the right candidate" and a logo parade drops out of the relevant set on both sides.

We focus on two target groups: solo executive recruiters after a corporate or search-house exit, and growing boutique firms of up to around 20 people. The very large search houses live on international mandate lists, partner networks and framework contracts; their websites are reputation anchors. At the solo and boutique level, by contrast, a significant part of the mandate pipeline actually emerges through digital channels - focused LinkedIn visibility, long-tail SEO on industry-and-function combinations, structured presentation of BDU/AESC binding and industry experience, an open-mandates listing with JobPosting markup. A cleanly built website measurably shifts the pipeline here, because it moves the opening question from "do you also do IT?" to "can you shortlist a C-level mandate in Life Sciences Mittelstand within twelve weeks?".

Classical placement (contingent) is by a wide margin the most common model. A company mandates the recruiter to find a professional or leader, the recruiter researches and approaches candidates, presents a shortlist and receives a placement fee after the employment contract is signed - typically between 20 and 35 percent of the first gross annual salary (towards the upper third for demanding specialist and lower leadership positions). Important for the website: the employment contract is concluded solely between candidate and company - no employment relationship arises with the recruiter. Legally this is ordinary commercial placement under § 14 GewO in conjunction with §§ 291 ff. SGB III; a § 34c GewO licence is not applicable, because that provision addresses real estate and loan brokerage, not recruitment.

Retained executive search is the established model for leadership and C-level positions - CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, CHRO, division heads, VP level. Instead of placing advertisements and waiting for applications, the search firm actively researches the relevant market, approaches candidates directly and runs structured assessments. The fee structure is characteristic: a retainer (upfront invoice) plus success component, total fee typically 28 to 40 percent of the first gross annual salary, often split across three stages (briefing, presented shortlist, signed contract). Legally retained executive search is identical to classical placement - no temporary staffing, no employment relationship with the firm - it is only methodologically different. On the website we communicate this as a sober service description and avoid any wording that would make a retainer look like it is "payable by the candidate" - that would breach § 296 para. 3 SGB III and would be a hard compliance finding.

Temporary staffing (Zeitarbeit, interim management under AÜG) is its own legal universe. The firm employs candidates itself and provides them to a client company for their labour output - not for placement. This requires a licence under § 1 AÜG from the Federal Employment Agency; the licence presupposes reliability, economic capacity and liability coverage. With the licence come duties that must not disappear under "other topics" on the website: equal pay under § 8 AÜG (at the latest after nine months; without collective agreement from day one), a maximum assignment period of 18 months at the same client under § 1 para. 1b AÜG, information duties towards temporary workers under § 11 AÜG, flanked by minimum-wage collective agreements (iGZ/BAP) and the AEntG. Breaches are regulatory offences under § 16 AÜG with fines of up to 500,000 EUR; the harshest consequence is that in the case of unlicensed staffing an employment relationship arises directly between the client and the worker.

From this a clear architecture follows for the website: three dedicated sub-pages, one per model, with precise fee logic, a description of the contractual parties and the service scope. The AÜG section is only shown where the licence is actually held; the licence number and the issuing state can be named in the imprint or on the AÜG page - a strong trust signal towards procurement departments that regularly request proof of the licence in framework agreements. Where no AÜG licence exists, we expressly exclude the model on the website to avoid grey areas. Pricing and fee communication is given as orientation (percentage ranges, staging logic), not as a list price - individual conditions emerge in the mandate conversation and belong there.

The homepage answers three questions in 15 seconds: in which industries and functions do you work, with which business model, and with which verifiable quality binding (BDU, AESC, ERA). Instead of "we fill positions across all industries", a precise focus axis - for instance "Retained executive search for C-level and senior management positions in pharma/life sciences, MedTech and healthcare in the DACH region". A measured team photo (not stock, not glossy) and, as the primary CTA, the mandate enquiry conversation with a 30-minute slot, not "find top candidates now" action banners. Carousels, pop-ups and aggressive lead-capture dialogues do not belong in this B2B market and immediately read as unserious to CFOs and HR leadership.

The service and competence pages form the SEO backbone along two axes: industry and function. Per industry (pharma/life sciences, automotive, mechanical engineering, finance/banking/insurance, IT/software/tech, consulting, energy, retail/consumer, healthcare/hospitals, public sector) and per function level (C-level, senior management/division heads, middle management, specialists) 800 to 1,500 words each, with typical position profiles, salary ranges, usual search durations and methodological framework. These pages rank for long-tail searches with clear buying intent: "CFO search Mittelstand mechanical engineering Bavaria", "Head of Quality Pharma DACH", "interim CTO SaaS Hamburg". We structure them with a clear heading hierarchy, internal linking and Schema.org markup (ProfessionalService, Person), without hollow keyword repetition which today is penalised anyway.

The team and partner page is the most visible trust signal of the recruitment website. Per partner: real photo, education and career history (business, psychology or law degree, MBA, relevant corporate HR or search stations with roles and duration), industry and function focus in years, languages, certifications (BDU specialist consultant, CSR/diversity programmes, assessment certifications such as Hogan or Predictive Index), relevant publications and speaker slots (HR fairs such as Zukunft Personal, HR conferences). This presentation is more credible than a logo parade of client brands - and it filters procurement departments asking in tenders for concrete qualification evidence and industry experience. A client logo wall works only where explicit written consent exists, ideally complemented by an anonymised statement such as "since 2014 we have filled mandates in mechanical engineering, automotive suppliers, pharma and SaaS companies between 50 and 5,000 employees".

Two further areas need special attention. The mandate cases consistently work pseudonymously: initial situation (industry, revenue and headcount class, role), brief, approach in three to five steps, key figures in qualitative or relative terms ("time to shortlist nine weeks", "time to hire week 16", "retention at 100 percent over twelve months"). Alongside sits the open-mandates listing: current positions as job adverts, either with an anonymised client ("a leading mechanical engineering firm in Bavaria") or with explicit naming consent, technically built with Schema.org JobPosting markup and optionally fed via an Indeed XML feed or syndicated to LinkedIn/Xing/StepStone. The infrastructure for this (Astro content collections for the position entries, clean structured data, author roles) we build so that your team or your ATS can maintain the mandates without technical hurdles - without us hosting the ATS itself or storing CV data on our systems. Rounding out the picture is a thought-leadership blog with salary reports, diversity-in-leadership studies and industry trend analyses - classic lead magnets in the executive environment.

With every mandate, executive recruiters process one of the most sensitive datasets any B2B advisory practice encounters: CVs, references, employer and salary histories, reference checks, interview and assessment notes, photo and video material from interviews. In parts, special categories of personal data under Art. 9 GDPR are touched on - trade-union membership, religious imprinting from earlier faith-based employers, health restrictions from the application history. In the website copy the legal bases are separated cleanly: towards candidates usually consent under Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (and additionally Art. 9 para. 2 lit. a where sensitive categories are collected) for inclusion in the active candidate pool - with a defined retention period and an explicit right to withdraw - or Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b GDPR for the concrete mandate initiation; towards clients Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b GDPR for the mandate and fee relationship.

The candidate page makes this logic visible. We structure a dedicated sub-page with four blocks: scope of consent (which data enters the pool, for which purpose), retention period (e.g. "24 months in the active pool, then anonymisation or renewed consent"), data subject rights under Art. 15 to 17 GDPR (access, rectification, erasure, restriction) with a clear process to exercise them, and the information duty under Art. 13 and 14 GDPR at first contact (also in active sourcing, where data are not collected from the data subject). Complementarily we address the special questions of employee data protection: once hired candidates fall under § 26 BDSG on the company side with long retention periods (personnel file under HGB/AO six to ten years), while rejected candidates are typically deleted after six months - the period that results from the AGG litigation deadline under § 15 para. 4 AGG in conjunction with § 61b ArbGG. The website frames this as a process description, not as individual legal advice.

A dedicated section addresses the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG). § 1 AGG names the protected characteristics (race/ethnic origin, gender, religion/belief, disability, age, sexual identity), § 7 AGG prohibits discrimination on these grounds in employment, and Federal Labour Court case law derives from this that questions about pregnancy or family planning in interviews are inadmissible and that these characteristics must not be run as selection criteria in ATS systems. An executive search firm that makes this visible on the website - as "our search process is aligned with § 1 AGG; we do not run protected characteristics as selection criteria and advise clients on AGG-compliant wording of position profiles" - signals quality to procurement, HR leadership and candidates simultaneously. This is more effective than any diversity-charta graphic on the homepage and filters out clients who would issue discriminatory briefs.

Active sourcing via LinkedIn Recruiter, Xing TalentManager, StepStone or Indeed is a staple of executive search - and needs explanation on the website. The approach is usually tenable under data protection law where it runs through the platform-native messaging channel, where platform terms are respected and where the purpose (mandate-related approach to an open position) is recognisable at first contact. It becomes critical in three constellations: first, the scraping of public profiles (CJEU and BGH case law leave only narrow paths here); second, cold outreach to private email addresses without any prior platform contact, which touches § 7 UWG (unreasonable harassment through unsolicited commercial communication) and a questionable legal basis under Art. 6 GDPR; third, poaching of competitors\' staff under § 4 Nr. 4 UWG - Federal Court of Justice case law allows brief first contacts at the workplace but prohibits substantive poaching conversations during working hours and systematic competitor poaching aimed at obstruction. We mirror these distinctions on a dedicated "Our search process" page, aligned with § 7 UWG and Art. 6 GDPR - which turns the page into a quality filter against opaque market participants.

Serious executive search thrives on verifiable association binding. The BDU (Bundesverband Deutscher Unternehmensberatungen) runs a dedicated Executive Search & HR Consulting division with binding professional principles on fee transparency, poaching ethics, candidate data handling and the clear separation from plain placement and AÜG staffing. At international level the AESC (Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants) with its code of conduct is the reference for retained executive search; associations such as ERA Executive Recruiters Alliance complement the picture, and, depending on the business model, iGZ or BAP matter for the AÜG part. On the website we build a dedicated page "Associations & code of conduct" with memberships, join dates and core principles as bullet points - linked to the original association texts, without re-interpretation that would drift into promotional territory. The page reads substantively and distinguishes the firm clearly from opaque "headhunter" presences that neither evidence memberships nor disclose fee logic.

The lead hierarchy of an executive search firm looks distinctly B2B. In first place sit referrals - from previous clients, HR networks and association binding - and the website secures them: the person being recommended is researched, and the website either confirms or devalues the referral. In second place is LinkedIn as the primary digital channel; in the executive environment LinkedIn is the target-group platform, not Instagram or TikTok. Regular subject-matter posts on salary trends, leadership requirements, diversity figures, with back-links to website articles rather than pure native posts, keep the narrative with you. Long-tail SEO complements this via industry-and-function combinations ("CFO search Mittelstand", "Head of Quality Pharma DACH", "interim CTO SaaS Hamburg"); a Google Business Profile with the category "Executive search consultant" (and secondary "HR services") covers regional queries. Salary reports and diversity-in-leadership studies as annual PDF lead magnets with double opt-in feed the CRM nurturing flow - integrated as widget or API forwarding from a lean Vercel function, without persistent storage of lead data on our systems.

The contact path is itself a qualification filter in this market segment and follows a clear two-part split. The mandate enquiry form on the website deliberately stays at entry-conversation level and asks exactly the information relevant for a first assessment: position and function level (C-level, senior, middle, specialist), industry, region, salary range and budget room, desired start date, company size, prior search activity. File uploads (job specs, org charts, internal profiles) are deliberately excluded from the form - sensitive documents move to encrypted channels after first contact. A candidate registration runs as a separate path with clear consent under Art. 7 GDPR, retention period and a withdrawal option; a CV upload on the public website is excluded, because it would create a joint controllership and a malware risk that protects neither us nor you. The form is server-side validated with honeypot and rate limit, and forwards the entry via secure SMTP directly to your business mailbox - without storage on our systems.

The architecture of the overall system follows from that: your CV database, your matching process, your candidate pool management and your client messaging live in specialised systems built for it - Bullhorn, JobDiva, Crelate, Zoho Recruit, Personio, rexx, Workday or SAP SuccessFactors, flanked by LinkedIn Recruiter and Xing TalentManager for active search. On the marketing website we embed specifically what should be visible from the outside - the open-mandates listing with Schema.org JobPosting, appointment booking for the mandate conversation (Calendly, Cal.com, Microsoft Bookings) via iFrame or button link, newsletter and CRM connection - and expressly exclude what belongs on the inside: a CV database of our own, a matching algorithm, a messaging portal between candidates and clients or online payment handling for retainer and success fees. This split keeps our role small, keeps your mandate and candidate data in systems that are certified and contractually suitable for it, and matches exactly the architecture that procurement departments at major clients expect in framework agreements.