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Standard referencing asks people the candidate chose to nominate whether the candidate is good. The answer is almost always yes. Persona due diligence is the work that happens when the consequences of being wrong are large enough that agreeable answers from selected referees are not sufficient evidence.
Confirming that the record is the record. Dates, titles, reporting lines, qualifications and the scale of what was owned. Discrepancies here are usually inflation rather than fabrication, and the pattern of inflation is itself informative.
Directorships, disqualifications, litigation, regulatory findings and media coverage, assessed for relevance rather than volume. A named defendant in a routine commercial dispute is not a finding.
Structured conversations with people who worked alongside the candidate but were not nominated by them. This is where the texture is, and it is the layer standard referencing omits entirely.
A single difficult exit means little. The same complaint appearing independently at three organisations across a decade is a pattern, and patterns predict better than incidents.
A report sets out what was found, how it was corroborated and how confident we are, and it separates fact from characterisation. Someone saying a candidate was difficult in a turnaround is a characterisation from one perspective, and in a turnaround it may be a compliment. Presenting it as a finding would be dishonest.
We do not issue a hire or do-not-hire recommendation. The decision belongs to the board or the hiring executive, who know the context, the team and the tolerance for risk. A firm that converts research into a verdict is inviting you to outsource accountability for a decision that will remain yours.
No covert investigation, no pretexting, no approaching a candidate's current employer without explicit permission, and nothing that would expose that the candidate is in a process. Work is conducted with the candidate's written consent, and candidates are told the scope. A candidate who declines to consent has told you something, but it is not necessarily what people assume, and it should be weighed rather than treated as an answer.
We also do not assess anything protected: health, family circumstances, personal relationships or political affiliation. These are not relevant to whether someone can do a job, and collecting them creates legal exposure for you rather than insight.
Yes. The work runs on written consent and candidates are informed of the scope before it starts. Covert investigation of an individual is a different activity, carried out by different firms, and it is not what this is.
Board and chair appointments, chief executive succession, regulated roles, appointments where an investor or acquirer will scrutinise the individual, and any hire where a reputational problem would be material to the business. For a mid-level functional hire it is usually not proportionate, and we will say so.
We report it as ambiguous, with the corroboration we have and the confidence we place in it. Resolving ambiguity by rounding it into a conclusion is the main way this work causes harm, because a candidate can lose an appointment over a characterisation that a second source would have contradicted.
That is your decision, not ours. Some findings are disqualifying in one context and immaterial in another. A regulatory matter that matters enormously for a listed audit committee may be irrelevant for an operating role, which is why we report rather than adjudicate.
It runs at final stage, after assessment and normally alongside the offer conversation, so that only a genuine finalist is subject to it. In a retained executive search it is a distinct workstream with its own consent, not a step folded silently into referencing.
Only with their consent and a clear, legitimate purpose, such as a promotion into a regulated role. Running this on an existing employee without consent is an employment relations problem and, depending on jurisdiction, a legal one.
Tell us about the mandate or challenge you are facing and we will show you what a tailor-made, partner-led engagement really looks like.