Executive career success in search-firm-mediated moves across employers

This paper integrates the economic and sociological literatures on market intermediaries to examine the ways in which a labor market intermediary, executive search firms, alter career outcomes for executives who move across organizations. Analyses of the proprietary dataset of a large multinational executive search firm show that executives whose moves are mediated by the search firm are more likely to obtain a promotion or move to a larger and more reputable new employer than those who move without such mediation, but they are not more likely to move to a developmental assignment: one in a new function or in a new industry. The results suggest that the search firm constrains executives' options by matching their existing knowledge and skills with open positions.