Most contingent recruiters never go retained because they're terrified of losing the clients they've spent years building. Andrea Colabella was too — until she made the move and realized the anticipation was the hardest part.
Andrea is the founder of Cardea Group, a fully retained executive search firm in New York City specializing in legal and compliance professionals at hedge funds, private equity firms, and family offices. She's a Pinnacle Society member, has placed over 500 professionals across 20 years in recruiting, and in 2023 made the full pivot to 100% retained. In this episode she breaks down exactly how she did it — the pricing structure, the client conversations, the coaching program she used, and the single billing change that would have made her significantly more money across her entire career.
If you're contingent and thinking about making the move, this is the episode.
What You'll Learn
→ The "menu" framework that gets clients to choose engaged over contingent almost every time
→ How retained pricing actually works: 40/40/20 structure on total target compensation
→ Why billing on total comp instead of base salary is a career-changing shift
→ How to pitch retained to existing clients without blowing the relationship
→ The Retrained coaching program she used to make the transition
→ How she converted a client with two prior turndowns into three retained hires
→ Using recorded video interviews to cut 5-8 hours of client interview time per search
→ Weekly steering meetings: how to manage retained clients and protect the process
→ The question every recruiter should be asking instead of chasing more tools: what should I stop doing?
Timestamps
00:00 — Cold-calling her way into recruiting in 2005 Boston
10:42 — Leaving the broad market to go deep in investment management
12:37 — What bad firm culture taught her about running her own shop
23:00 — Recyclability: why candidates flood the market at the same time
26:02 — The contingent to engaged to retained journey
30:05 — How retained pricing works: 40/40/20 on total comp
31:43 — Why billing on total compensation changes everything
33:22 — What white glove service actually means operationally
37:26 — Converting existing clients: anticipation is worse than the conversation
39:33 — Hosting in-person industry events as a BD strategy
44:14 — Weekly steering meetings and defensive calendar blocking
53:16 — The retained pitch and 52-day average time to close
54:36 — Using recorded video interviews to cut client interviewing time
55:29 — Advice for new recruiters and those chasing elite
01:01:43 — The question nobody asks: what should I stop doing?
Connect with Andrea Colabella
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colabella/
🌐 Cardea Group: https://thecardeagroup.com
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