What if conventional recruitment tactics don’t deliver?

At Victus Search, many of our family office briefs are for specialist, niche roles, and over the past year, we have worked on a number of mandates that looked straightforward on paper but turned out to be more complicated in practice. The following examples, all drawn from actual client briefs we’ve worked on, illustrate the value of working with a specialist recruiter when the talent pool for an ideal fit is necessarily limited. Some details have been changed or omitted in respect of client confidentiality. 

The right candidate may not be looking to move roles

A family office in the Channel Islands was looking to hire a senior compliance professional. On paper, the available pool of candidates looked thin – which might be expected given the small, tightly connected nature of the market. The client had already advertised the role and approached its own network without success.

In practice, though, the right candidates were simply hard to see through conventional channels. A number of the strongest professionals in the market hadn’t updated a CV in years and had little presence on recruitment platforms, mainly because they weren’t actively looking for a job. Several were, though, willing to have a conversation with someone they already trusted about the right opportunity – and as a result we were able to connect our client with several strong candidates, ultimately leading to a successful hire.

The takeaway: 

In specialist markets, many of the best candidates are rarely applying anywhere. Reaching top talent may often depend on leveraging an existing relationship rather than publishing a job advert.

Briefs can be more complex than they appear at first sight

On a recent brief, a family office principal needed someone who could own investment reporting, support private investments, liaise with external advisers and pick up operational projects as they arose. It was, in effect, a hybrid role. But through initial searches and engagements, they found that candidates with an investment background tended to be light on operational experience, while operations-focused candidates often lacked the commercial exposure the role demanded. 

Searching within family office spaces alone kept producing this same trade-off. Once appointed, our approach was to widen the search to adjacent markets, keeping sight of the person specification, but without mandating family office experience. Taking a broader view eventually delivered results: we identified a strong candidate coming from a boutique investment background. While they didn’t have specific sector experience, the unique nature of their role had required them to develop the required skill sets in parallel – operations and investment – resulting in a successful placement.

The takeaway: 

Family offices often need people who don’t fit neatly into a single job description, especially when hiring for senior and executive roles. Finding the right fit means looking at where hybrid skill sets tend to develop, rather than just where roles are advertised.

For niche roles, the right expertise is often further afield

We were appointed by a family office based in London looking for professionals with specific experience in offshore administration, governance and fiduciary work, to support the management of the family’s substantial portfolio of offshore trusts, companies and private structures.

The initial search within our London network allowed us to shortlist several candidates with strong and relevant financial services experience. But introductory conversations revealed that in most cases, they hadn’t directly managed complex offshore structures – a non-negotiable criterion for this role. 

To find the right experience, we widened the search. Drawing on our networks across markets including Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands, we were able to connect with highly qualified professionals not actively looking to move, but open to a conversation with a trusted contact. These existing relationships allowed us to work through practical questions around relocation and market expectations alongside the search, presenting only well-matched candidates to our client.

The takeaway:

The best candidate for a London-based role doesn’t always live in London. The same can be said for Jersey, New York or Dubai. Reaching the right talent usually calls for networks that extend well beyond the jurisdiction where the job is based.

An outcome-focused search can locate hidden talent

A family office client was looking to hire a Chief of Staff for their growing operation, to act as a trusted “right hand”, introduce structure to the organisation and coordinate the family’s advisers. While the brief initially seemed straightforward, as we spent time with the principal, we realised the breadth of the remit extended beyond a typical CoS role, including operational oversight and strategic and provider management elements.

We advised that restricting the search to professionals with Chief of Staff on their resume would limit the talent pool unnecessarily. In fact, the job being described was arguably closer to a Chief Operating Officer. Instead of focusing on titles, we based our search on the outcomes the family office wanted to achieve, widening the mapping to senior operations leaders and private office executives who had built and professionalised complex organisations before. 

The resulting shortlist was more varied in terms of roles and experience, but closer in fit to what the principals had in mind at the beginning of the process. In fact, the eventual hire joined as COO, bringing the operational depth the role required while still acting as a trusted partner to the principal.

The takeaway:

In family office searches, it often helps to start from the underlying challenge rather than the job title on the brief. Occasionally, finding the right person means being willing to redefine the role itself.

The common thread: specialist support matters for niche hires

While each of these briefs was challenging, the right talent was out there – finding it was a matter of focusing the search more precisely, thinking creatively, and having access to the right network of professionals. 

That’s the difference that a specialist recruiter like Victus Search can bring to the table. It’s a skill set that we’ve developed over a decade of working closely with family offices in particular, where briefs can be fluid, hiring decisions are high-stakes, and job descriptions rarely map one-to-one onto traditional or institutional roles. 

If your family office is trying to fill a role where conventional recruitment tactics haven’t delivered, we’d be happy to offer the benefit of that experience. Get in touch with Victus Search to talk through your brief in confidence.