How we hire
How a search runs,
and what it costs.
Puck is a hiring partner for founders of agencies and consumer brands. We run the whole search, you meet a short list of people we’d recommend, and you pay only when you hire.
15% fee · Six-month guarantee · No retainer
- 1The brief
- 2The search
- 3The short list
- 4The offer
- Day one
- Six-month guarantee
The search
Four steps, five to six weeks. Nothing goes out until you’ve signed off the brief.
Step 1 · The brief
A sixty-minute call, then a brief you sign off.
After the intro call, if we’re both in, we spend an hour with you and whoever the hire will report to. We ask where the business is going and what this person has to get done. Then we map the role: who it reports to, how it’s measured, what it pays. You sign off the brief, and the role gets its own page. The brief we leave with is rarely the spec you came in with.
“They took what we gave them, understood it, made it sharper, then executed on it.”
Kieran FlynnCo-Founder & Operations Director · AlphageekStep 2 · The search
We find the people, and we do the sorting.
We advertise the role and go directly to people who aren’t looking. On most roles we ask applicants a few questions about the job itself. On a creative strategist search, one was: show me one concept you built yourself, and the number it moved. We read the answers before the CV. You never see the pile.
Step 3 · The short list
A short list, with our notes behind every name.
Each person on it is someone we’d recommend. You get what we found: their story, why they’re moving, where we have doubts, and what we’d test if we were you. We review each CV with the candidate and rework it, so the experience that matters is easy to find.
A CV tells you what someone has done. An interview tells you how they talk about it. So for some roles we test how people think: finalists get a short task built from the real job, with no single right answer. You get what they made, and our notes on how they went about it.
Step 4 · The offer
You decide. We see it through to a signed contract.
You interview and choose. We prepare both sides, carry the feedback each way, and handle the offer until the contract is signed. If it helps, we’ll review your existing contracts with you first. On a permanent hire, the guarantee starts on their first day.
Day one
Six-month guarantee
The agreement
The terms, in plain English.
These are the main terms. You’ll have the full agreement before you sign anything.
- The fee
- 15% of your hire’s first-year salary, invoiced once they’ve signed.
- 15%
- The guarantee
- If a permanent hire leaves, or you have to let them go, inside six months, we run the search again at no fee.
- 6months
- Up front
- Nothing. No retainer.
- £0
- If they never start
- You don’t pay, and anything you’ve already paid comes back in full. The one exception is if you withdraw an offer they’ve accepted. Then half the fee is due.
- What the guarantee covers
- One replacement search, started within ten working days of you telling us.
The rest of the terms
- The conditions
- Three. The invoice was paid on time. You tell us within 14 days of them leaving. And the role wasn’t made redundant or changed substantially after they joined.
- Other firms
- Use them if you want to. We don’t ask for exclusivity. You’re looking for the best person: if we find them, we’re paid, and if we don’t, we’re not. We’d never want to slow you down.
- Contract and fractional roles
- Agreed separately, in writing, before we start.
We’re only paid when you hire, and if they don’t stay we do the work again for nothing. So we want what you want.
Book a callThe Operators
A second opinion from someone who has run the function.
The Operators are senior leaders with their own practices. When the role is outside your own experience and one of them has run that function, they join the process at no extra cost: they sit in on an interview, or help us set the task and review the work. Not every search has one, and we’ll tell you up front whether yours should.
Dave Morrissey
Fractional Growth Partner · SCEAL
Paid social and ecommerce growth
Spent six years at Meta, and later led TikTok’s retail and ecommerce team.
Millie Pearson
Fractional COO · Pearson Consultancy
Retail and ecommerce operations
Led Karen Millen’s first omnichannel rollout.
Joey de Wit
Fractional CFO · AgenCFO
Finance: pricing, forecasting and cash
Founded AgenCFO, a finance practice for agencies and ecommerce brands, after corporate finance at Standard Chartered.
Asked often
Fair questions.
15% is a lot. What do I get that a LinkedIn post doesn’t?
It’s real money, so here’s what it buys. A sixty-minute briefing and a brief written with you. The search, and the sorting. A short list with our notes and our doubts on each person. Every CV reworked. A task when the role calls for one, and an Operator in the room where one of them has run the function. The offer and the contract handled. Then a six-month guarantee. Firms typically charge between 15 and 25% of first-year salary. We’re at the bottom of that, with no retainer.
You’re new. Why should I trust you?
You should ask. Puck is new. The hiring isn’t: Adam has hired more than 100 people, over 50 into his own agencies and more than 50 for other founders. Then hold us to the terms above: you pay nothing until you hire, and if the hire doesn’t last six months we run the search again.
I’ve been burned before.
Then hold us to two things you can check. Every name on your short list comes with our doubts as well as our reasons. And if someone we put forward interviews well and then leaves, the second search is on us.
How fast is this?
Right now, five to six weeks from the brief to a hire. We’re not the fastest way to get CVs into your inbox, and we don’t try to be: the brief comes first and we won’t skip it. After that it depends on the role and how many people can really do it.
When are we the wrong choice?
Three cases. If you’ve hired for the role before and can judge it yourself, post it and ask around. If you need ten hires this quarter, an in-house team will serve you better. And if you need someone in a fortnight, we’re probably not it. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll say so, and tell you who is.
Tell Adam about the hire.
Start with twenty minutes, with no commitment on either side. Bring the role as you see it and roughly what it pays.
Adam CallowCo-founder · PuckPS, Adam
We spend a silly amount of time with our clients, understanding the business, the culture, and what a great hire actually looks like in that room.