There is a common assumption in recruitment conversations that senior roles are the hardest to fill and therefore justify higher fees. In the not-for-profit sector, that assumption does not always align neatly with how recruitment markets actually function.
In practice, senior roles such as CEOs and Directors often sit within well-defined candidate markets. Many senior candidates are known within the sector, connected through professional networks, and motivated by mission as much as progression. While they are not always visible to organisations directly, the underlying market is often clearer and more structured than it first appears.
This matters because recruitment effort and recruitment risk are not the same thing. In many cases, capable people already exist in the market, but they are not obvious or easily reached. The work is therefore about knowing who to approach, how to approach them and how to assess their fit properly. Professional recruitment remains essential; by bringing in specialised expertise, hiring committees can focus on selection and the end of the process.
Recruitment challenges in the not-for-profit sector tend to be unevenly distributed. Less senior roles are often where labour markets are genuinely tight, particularly where roles require niche expertise, specific qualifications, or local knowledge, or where salary constraints significantly narrow the field. In these cases, sourcing itself is harder, risk is higher, and effort increases accordingly.
It is also important to recognise that many organisations experience senior hiring as difficult, and that experience is entirely understandable. Boards and leadership teams are rarely embedded in recruitment markets and may have limited visibility of who could be approached, when, and how. Without that visibility, even a relatively healthy senior talent market can feel uncertain or opaque.
This is where pricing conversations benefit from greater clarity. In some parts of the recruitment market, seniority is treated as a proxy for difficulty. That shortcut is familiar and easy to apply, but it does not always reflect where effort and risk actually sit. When fees follow hierarchy rather than sourcing conditions, organisations may find that pricing and effort drift out of alignment.
The not-for-profit sector has strong leadership talent alongside real, manageable labour market challenges. Being clear about how different parts of the recruitment market function helps organisations ensure that pricing reflects real effort and real risk, and supports hiring decisions that are approached with confidence rather than inherited assumption.