Stop Applying and Start Getting Represented: Why Senior Executives Need a Talent Agent

News · Executive careers

1 September 2026 · 14 min read · Kylie Hammond

At the top of the Australian employment market, finding your next role has become a campaign, not a job application

For most of my career in executive search, I have held a fairly simple view: the candidate is at the heart of the recruitment process. That might sound obvious, but recruitment hasn’t traditionally been structured that way. Recruiters and executive search consultants are generally retained by the employer. Their job is to find the best person for that particular organisation and that particular vacancy. They are not there to manage the candidate’s broader career, identify every opportunity that might suit them, open doors with other organisations or tell them that the role they are currently pursuing probably isn’t the right move. Their client is the employer.

For many years, I have worked differently. Alongside my executive and board search practices, I have offered Talent Agent services, where I represent the executive rather than the employer. I believe I am one of the relatively few executive and board search professionals in Australia who have consistently operated on both sides of this equation, and I think that experience matters. I understand how executive search works because I have spent more than two decades doing it, but when I act as a Talent Agent, my responsibility is very clear. I am representing the executive, their interests, and their longer-term career.

A recruiter represents the vacancy. A Talent Agent represents the executive. Those are two completely different propositions.

The senior executive job market has changed

There is no question that it is challenging out there, and interestingly, this isn’t simply my observation from working with executives every day. In July 2026, ABC Radio National asked the question directly: “Is it getting harder to find a job?” Its reporting pointed to people staying in their positions, international pressures, and a tight economic environment all affecting Australia’s white-collar employment market.

There are harder numbers behind that sentiment. Australia’s unemployment rate reached 4.5 percent in July 2026, with the ABS recording approximately 691,500 unemployed Australians. At the same time, the latest available ABS job vacancy figures showed vacancies falling 2.1 percent in the May quarter to 329,500. Those headline figures don’t tell us everything about what is happening at the executive end of the market, but they certainly provide some context for what many senior candidates are experiencing.

More tellingly, recent ABC reporting on the impact of AI and economic uncertainty identified particular pressure at the executive level. Recruitment professionals described organisations eliminating or downgrading some highly paid executive positions, resulting in what the ABC described as a “glut of experienced candidates in the market, competing for fewer roles.” That is much closer to what I am seeing in practice.

There are some outstanding executives in the market. People who have run major divisions, CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, transformation leaders, people and culture executives, commercial leaders, and executives returning to Australia after significant international careers. In many cases, the problem isn’t their capability at all. The problem is getting them into the right room, at the right time, with someone who has the authority and appetite to employ them.

Applying for more jobs isn’t necessarily the answer

When an executive tells me they are struggling with their job search, one of the first things I want to understand is what they are actually doing. I want to know how many applications they have made, how many conversations they have had, which search firms they have spoken with and where they are seeing opportunities. But there is one question I care about more than almost anything else: how many genuine meetings do you have in your diary with somebody who could actually employ you?

You can spend an enormous amount of time being “busy” in a job search without getting anywhere near a genuine decision-maker. You can apply for 50 positions on LinkedIn, upload your CV to every executive search database in Australia, spend hours tailoring cover letters, have coffee after coffee with former colleagues and feel as though you are doing everything possible to get back into the market. But if none of that activity is translating into meaningful conversations with CEOs, chairs, HR directors, business owners, private equity partners, investors or executives with genuine hiring authority, then you don’t really have a job search pipeline. You have activity, and those are not the same thing.

I don’t measure an executive job search by how many applications somebody has made. I measure it by how many real conversations they are having with people who can hire them.

The numbers game has become harder

Years ago, I regularly worked to a methodology of 100 approaches in 100 days. Done properly, that level of targeted activity would typically generate several longlists, several shortlists and, ideally, a couple of serious offers by the end of the cycle. Today, I am seeing executives needing substantially more market activity to produce comparable results, and in some searches we are looking at 200 or even 300 potential employers and market touchpoints over a similar period.

That does not mean sending 300 generic emails or firing the same CV indiscriminately across the market. Quite the opposite. The quality of the approach has become far more important because there is so much noise in the market. Every approach needs to have a reason behind it. Why this company? Why this executive? Why now? What problem could they solve? Who is the right person to approach and what is likely to make that person take notice?

AI has made that problem even more interesting. ABC reported in May that widespread use of generative AI in recruitment was causing CVs to become increasingly similar. Michael Page research cited by the ABC found 67 per cent of job seekers were using AI in their CVs, with recruiters suggesting that this was diminishing the ability of the traditional résumé to differentiate candidates.

If everybody has a polished CV, everybody has optimised their LinkedIn profile and everybody can produce a reasonable cover letter in 30 seconds, those things inevitably cease to be the differentiator they once were. Relationships become more valuable, reputation becomes more valuable, introductions become more valuable and getting directly in front of the right person becomes enormously valuable.

This is where a Talent Agent changes the equation

My role as a Talent Agent is to represent the candidate’s best interests throughout the process, and that starts with strategy. We need to establish what we are actually looking for, which organisations make sense, where the executive’s background has genuine commercial value and what level they should realistically be targeting. We also need to understand which sectors are expanding, which organisations are changing leadership, where private equity is investing, which businesses are restructuring, acquiring, divesting or preparing for growth, and which executive search firms genuinely specialise in that particular market.

Then we start opening doors. Sometimes that means approaching an organisation directly and introducing the executive. Sometimes it means leveraging an existing relationship with a CEO, HR director, chair or board member. Sometimes I know that an executive search is underway and can connect my client with the consultant running it. At other times, it means introducing an executive to one of the executive search professionals in my network because I know that person has a strong practice in their particular area. Increasingly, opportunities also emerge through private equity, venture capital, lawyers, accountants, advisers or investors before anything resembling a formal vacancy has reached the market.

I don’t particularly care which route produces the opportunity. What matters to me is whether it is the right opportunity for the executive, whether we can get them properly considered and whether it makes sense as part of their broader career. That is what candidate representation should be.

I don’t compete with executive search firms

This is an important distinction because Talent Agent services are not about trying to bypass or undermine executive search firms. I have worked in executive search for more than 20 years. I know many excellent search professionals and regularly introduce my clients to them. If another search firm has the perfect mandate for my client, terrific. I want my client in that process.

My job then becomes helping them navigate it properly. Who is running the search? What does that consultant care about? How should we position the executive? What are the likely concerns about their candidacy? What should we emphasise? What shouldn’t we overplay? What is happening inside the organisation that might not be immediately apparent from the position description?

It is a holistic approach. The executive isn’t left trying to navigate an unfamiliar recruitment market alone, and I am not trying to control how the opportunity comes about. I am trying to make sure my client is in the right conversations when it does.

I am not trying to control how the opportunity comes about. I am trying to make sure my client is in the right conversations when it does.

The hidden market matters enormously

One of the biggest mistakes senior executives make is assuming the employment market consists of the jobs they can see. It doesn’t. At senior levels, opportunities emerge through relationships long before advertisements appear, and sometimes they never become advertisements at all.

A CEO mentions to a chair that they need a new commercial leader. A private equity partner decides a portfolio company needs a stronger CFO. A board starts discussing CEO succession. An organisation begins quietly looking at replacing an underperforming executive. A company preparing for a transaction realises it needs capability it doesn’t currently have. A former colleague hears that somebody is leaving, or a search consultant starts mapping a market before the mandate is publicly known. None of these situations necessarily starts with a SEEK advertisement, but every one of them can eventually result in a substantial executive appointment.

This is the market senior executives need to become plugged into, and it is particularly important for executives returning to Australia after years overseas, or people who have spent ten years with their heads down doing an excellent job inside one organisation. I see this constantly. They have an impressive career, but what they don’t necessarily have is a fresh external network.

Their old contacts have moved. Search consultants have changed firms. CEOs have retired. Industries have consolidated. Private equity ownership has shifted. Their LinkedIn network might be large, but their active business network is stale. Then suddenly they need a job, and that is a very difficult moment to start rebuilding a senior network from scratch.

A significant part of what I provide through Talent Agent services is access to a current business network. That can mean opening doors to HR directors, CEOs, chairs, board members, investors, private equity partners, advisers, nomination committee members, and executive search professionals. It doesn’t guarantee an appointment, nor should any credible service claim that it does, but it can dramatically change the quality of the conversations an executive is having.

Six interviews and three months later, you still might not have the job

The other major change I am seeing is the length and complexity of recruitment processes. For a substantial executive appointment, six or seven meetings is no longer particularly unusual. There may be the search consultant, HR, CEO, peers, board members, psychometric assessments, presentations and final meetings, and coordinating the diaries alone can stretch a process across eight, twelve or sixteen weeks.

ABC has previously reported on precisely this phenomenon, including candidates going through lengthy multi-stage recruitment processes only to lose the role to an internal candidate. More recent ABC reporting described a job seeker facing a process where shortlisting, two or three interviews and internal approvals could mean a three-month wait for a single application.

For C-suite executives, the entire search for the next substantive role can take considerably longer. In my experience, six to twelve months is entirely possible depending on the executive’s level, remuneration, sector, geography and flexibility. This is exactly why waiting for one process to resolve before starting another is such a dangerous strategy.

The longer a recruitment process runs, the greater the opportunity for something to change. Headcount disappears, a restructure occurs, the CEO changes their mind, an internal candidate emerges, the organisation changes the brief, the search is put on hold, the salary changes or a preferred candidate suddenly becomes available. None of those things necessarily have anything to do with the quality of your candidacy, but they can end the process overnight.

That is why an executive career campaign needs a genuine pipeline. You want multiple conversations developing simultaneously so that your entire future isn’t riding on one recruitment process that has already consumed three months of your time.

Every interview now matters

The flip side of having fewer high-quality opportunities is that you cannot afford to waste them, and I am increasingly surprised by how underprepared senior executives can be for important interviews.

I recently asked a client preparing for a board interview a very simple question: Who is on the board? The answer was effectively silence. They were planning to research it later that day. For me, that isn’t enough. If you are interviewing tomorrow, you should know considerably more than what appears in the position description and on the company’s homepage.

You should understand who owns the company, who sits on the board, what their backgrounds are, what has changed in the leadership team, what the annual report tells you, what the strategic priorities appear to be, and what has been said in the media. Depending on the organisation, you may need to understand the competitors, investors, revenue, margin, market share, valuation, recent transactions or regulatory environment. Most importantly, you need to have thought deeply about what problem the organisation is really trying to solve by making this appointment.

Then we need to think about the people in the room. Who are you meeting? What are they likely to care about? What concerns might they have about you? What evidence from your career demonstrates that you can solve their problems? Where are the gaps in your experience, and how will you address them if challenged?

An executive interview should increasingly feel like a peer-to-peer commercial discussion, not a candidate sitting politely on the other side of a desk waiting to be assessed. Every interview effectively restarts the process, as each new stakeholder is forming their own view of you, and you need to connect with each person while keeping your core positioning and messages consistent.

At C-suite level, you cannot wing an interview. The opportunity is too valuable and the next one may be months away.

Career representation shouldn’t finish when you get an interview

This is another reason I have always preferred the Talent Agent model. Getting the meeting is only part of the job. I work with clients on their positioning, applications, interview strategy, and mock interviews. We gather competitive and market intelligence, consider the individuals they will meet, and work through the difficult questions before someone asks them.

When an offer emerges, the work isn’t finished either. We need to look at what the contract actually says, how the remuneration is structured, what the STI and LTI arrangements entail, the termination provisions, whether equity is involved, the performance expectations, and whether the title properly reflects the remit. We also need to identify what has been promised verbally that should be put in writing, and where there may be room to negotiate.

Sometimes the smartest advice I give somebody is to take the opportunity. Sometimes it is to negotiate harder. Occasionally it is to walk away. Again, the distinction is simple: I represent the executive. My interest isn’t in filling a vacancy. It is in helping that executive make the right career move.

And increasingly, the conversation doesn’t stop at the next executive role

For many of the executives I work with, the next appointment isn’t the end of the conversation. It is part of a much longer career strategy.

A CEO in their 50s may have another major executive role ahead of them, but we should already be thinking about what comes after that. What board exposure are they getting? Which directors do they know? What governance experience are they building? Could they take an external advisory appointment? Should they be developing relationships with chairs? What might their Board Portfolio® eventually look like?

This is where my executive career work and my board search practice at Tiger Boards naturally come together. I am not particularly interested in helping somebody secure one job and disappearing. I would much rather understand the whole career, including the next executive move, the board career that may follow, the relationships that need to be built now, the positioning that will matter in five years and, eventually, the transition from executive income to portfolio income.

That longer-term relationship is important because careers at this level are rarely linear. An executive may move into another CEO role, take an advisory appointment, join a private company board, become involved with private equity, return to consulting for a period, and eventually build a portfolio of board and advisory work. Having someone who understands the history, ambitions and market positioning of that executive can be enormously valuable as those decisions unfold.

If your job search isn’t producing meetings, change the strategy

If you have been on the market for several months and you are still primarily applying for jobs, uploading CVs and waiting for recruiters to call, I would stop and look very carefully at what is actually happening. Ask yourself how many genuine decision-makers you have met in the past 30 days. How many CEOs? How many HR directors? How many chairs? How many private equity or venture capital partners? How many search consultants who genuinely operate in your discipline? How many organisations know that you exist and understand the value you could bring?

Because ultimately, someone has to meet you before they can hire you. That sounds ridiculously simple, but it is the part of executive job search strategy that gets lost amid CVs, LinkedIn applications, algorithms and recruitment portals.

The objective isn’t to become better at applying for jobs. The objective is to get into the rooms where decisions are made, build enough activity across the market that you are not dependent on one opportunity, and then be exceptionally well prepared when those opportunities become real.

That is what I have always believed good candidate representation should do, and that is what my Talent Agent service is designed to achieve.

If you are considering an executive career move in the next six months, or you have already been testing the market and aren’t getting sufficient traction, it may be time to approach the search differently. Rather than simply doing more of what isn’t working, take a hard look at the strategy, the network, the quality of the approaches, and, most importantly, the number of meaningful conversations you are actually generating.

Stop waiting for the market to find you. Start building a strategy to get in front of it.

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