The complete system to move from contingent to retained, win the right work consistently, and deliver it without losing control. Built by the Retrained Search team. Run alongside a community of search firm owners doing the same work.
Most recruiters trying to move into retained get stuck in the same place. The proposals don't land. The clients won't commit. The work that does come in feels like a one-off. This programme is designed to fix that, not in theory but in practice. The numbers below come from a real recruiter who went through it.
I come from a background of average fee £2,250, and to be pitching to clients and getting agreements for £45,000 deals, it's night and day.Shannon McKechnie · MBN Solutions
Search Foundations is the core programme. The three Accelerators are specialist tracks you take when you're ready to go deeper in a particular direction. You choose what fits.
How to read this: Foundations comes first because the whole system rests on it. The Accelerators are specialist tracks you take when you're ready to deepen one part of the practice. Many recruiters do Foundations and one Accelerator. Some take all three Accelerators over time. The right path depends on where your gaps are now.
Move from contingent to retained, end to end.
I thought retainers wouldn't work for me at all. I'm halfway through the course and have won two retainers, and the course has given me so much confidence to deliver them both.Susanna Gray-Jones · Chime Search
Make the right clients come to you.
Ryan built an AI-powered BD engine on the Marketing & AI Accelerator. A custom GPT trained on his own case studies and positioning, watching his market for the exact triggers that create retained demand. Leadership changes, regulatory approvals, clinical trial readouts, new companies entering Japan. Within weeks it was generating more qualified leads than he could act on.
The custom GPT for BD, it's working well. Too well. I've had to change it to once a week. It was just sending me stuff every day before I had a chance to act on it.
The result. Ryan finished 2025 at 250 percent of his annual target, including a company-record quarter, and is on track for 5 GM placements and around $1M in fees in 2026. Built on the system, not luck.
Win retained work consistently, conversation by conversation.
11 retainers in 3 months.Richard Ollerton · Andersen James Group
Deliver with the discipline that protects your reputation and grows the account.
The best thing we've done as a firm. A multi-hire retainer with $300k fees already.Sean Locke · The Locke Group
Not sure which direction fits?That's exactly what the strategy call is for. We'll look at where you are now and where the leverage is.
Book a callEvery programme runs the same way. Self-paced content you can work through in your own time, live coaching to sharpen as you go, and a community of other search firm owners doing the same work alongside you. The combination is what makes it stick.
Weekly collab sessions, hot seats, and Q&A with the Retrained Search team and the wider community. Bring the deal you're working on. Get a second pair of eyes before you send the next message.
Other search firm owners working through the same material, sharing wins, asking the awkward questions. Inside Skool, where the community runs. The conversations alone are worth the seat.
Not theory. The actual scripts, frameworks and templates the team uses. Briefing meetings, diagnostic conversations, pricing pushback, steering calls. You'll have words to use this week.
Personal onboarding calls to set you up properly and make sure your plan is realistic. Accountability calls to keep you moving when the day-to-day work tries to pull you off it.
A real conversation about where you are, where you want to be, and whether this is the right system to get you there. If it isn't, we'll tell you.