A few years ago I placed a senior leader into a newly formed practice at a well-regarded firm. He came from a strong background, fit the brief well, and the process ran cleanly. Fee paid, everyone happy. Normal.
What happened over the following eighteen months demonstrates the importance of focusing on relationships.
By the time I next spoke seriously with that leader about a hiring need, he had already suggested to his managing director that I come and present to the company's national director group. Not because I'd pitched for it. Not because I'd asked. Because he'd decided, off his own bat, that I was someone worth introducing.
That outcome had nothing to do with the placement. It had everything to do with what happened after the placement.
Most recruiters drop off. The deal closes, the fee lands, and contact becomes sporadic at best — an occasional check-in, a happy birthday message, maybe a LinkedIn like. The relationship that took months to build gets abandoned the moment it stops generating short-term revenue.
The placement is not the destination. It's the moment the real relationship starts.
How it begins: be straight from the first word
The first conversation I had with this particular candidate was cold outreach. No referral, no warm introduction. When he asked directly whether someone had referred me and which firm I represented, I answered both questions honestly — including acknowledging that nobody had referred me.
That's a moment where a lot of recruiters hedge. They give a half-answer that protects their positioning. They sense the question is a screening test and try to pass it without full disclosure.
The problem is that candidates notice. And the relational norm you set in the first exchange tends to hold. If you start evasive, you invite guardedness. If you start direct, you invite candour back.
Over the months that followed, this candidate shared compensation history, internal politics, personal timelines, and genuine uncertainties — not because I asked, but because the standard had been set early. Honesty in the first conversation was the foundation of everything that came later.
Show your advocacy — don't just describe it
During the offer stage, I got ahead of something I knew would matter to the candidate — a specific cost he'd be absorbing during his transition. I resolved it with the employer before he'd raised it, and sent him a short message letting him know.
His response was two words and two exclamation marks.
But the effect on the relationship was larger than any amount of explaining my value could have produced. Because there is a fundamental difference between telling a candidate you are working for them and showing it without being asked. Every recruiter tells candidates they are advocates. The candidates who trust that claim are the ones who've seen evidence of it.
In every process there is at least one moment where you can act on your candidate's behalf before they know to ask. Find it. Do the thing. Make sure they know you did it.
Stay present — consistently, lightly, genuinely
After the placement, I kept in touch with this leader roughly once a month. Sometimes it was a message about something happening in his market. Sometimes it was a relevant profile I thought he'd find useful. Sometimes it was following up on something personal he'd mentioned — a family trip, a goal he'd set, something his team was working on.
None of these touches required much. But they were consistent, and they were genuine. I wasn't manufacturing reasons to stay in contact. I was actually interested in how things were going.
Over eighteen months, something accumulated. By the time a hiring need emerged, I wasn't a vendor making a pitch. I was someone who already understood the comp philosophy, the team dynamics, the competitive landscape, the internal culture. I could write a brief that a transactional recruiter — one who'd had a single briefing call — couldn't have matched. Because I'd been listening for a year and a half.
The other thing that accumulated was something harder to name. This person had become someone I genuinely enjoyed talking to. We'd found shared interests and shared humour. When things went well for him, I was pleased — not strategically pleased, just actually pleased. And he could tell the difference.
You cannot manufacture that. But you can create the conditions for it by showing up consistently, sharing something of yourself, and following up on what people tell you about their lives. A relationship that is purely transactional is always one bad experience away from ending. One with real warmth is far more durable.
When things go wrong, own your part directly
Not everything in an extended relationship goes smoothly. At one point in this particular relationship, a process I was managing stalled. There was a candidate involved who was in a difficult personal period. I had been buying time, hoping the situation would resolve, and communicating less than I should have in the meantime. My contact eventually reached out to the candidate directly, having heard nothing from me.
I had to acknowledge that I had been less than fully transparent, and that my delay had put him in an awkward position.
What I didn't do: deflect to external circumstances. Blame the candidate's situation. Go quiet and hope it blew over.
I said what had happened, owned it, and apologised clearly. The relationship absorbed it. I don't think it would have, had I deflected.
This is the thing about setbacks in professional relationships. They don't damage trust on their own. The dishonesty about them does. A client or candidate who sees you handle a failure with directness tends to trust you more afterwards, not less. They've just learned something important: that you're someone who tells the truth when it costs you something.
That's rare. And it sticks.
Play the long game deliberately
The invitation to meet the national director group arrived out of nowhere from my perspective — a message letting me know that my contact had flagged me to his managing director and suggested I come and present when I was next in the city.
It wasn't the result of any one thing I had done. It was the result of eighteen months of being present, being honest, being useful, and being human. The return didn't arrive in a straight line. It arrived all at once, and it was disproportionate to any individual investment along the way.
This is how relationship capital actually accumulates in this business. Not through intensive cultivation of a few high-value targets. Through consistent, genuine investment in people you find interesting and worthwhile — with no guaranteed return and no specific timeline.
The recruiters who build careers on referrals and repeat business are not doing something fundamentally different from everyone else. They are doing the same things, more consistently, for longer, without expecting immediate return.
Most of their competitors give up too early. Usually just before the moment it would have paid off.
The eight things that actually built the relationship
Looking back across that eighteen-month span, here is what I think made the difference — stripped of everything that sounds like advice and reduced to what actually happened:
I was honest in the first conversation when a deflection would have been safer. I moved past friction without making it a story. I acted for him before he asked me to. I stayed in touch when there was nothing immediate in it for me. I was genuinely curious about his world. I let the human side of the relationship be real. I owned the moment I got it wrong. And I kept showing up long after the fee had cleared.
None of it was particularly sophisticated.
The placement is not the end. It is where the interesting part begins.
John Lyle is the founder of Lyle Alexander Consulting, a specialist search and advisory firm focused on accounting, finance and professional services. If you'd like to talk about how we work — or about a search you're running — get in touch.
