How to Go Fully Retained Without Losing Your Clients
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Most contingent recruiters think the hardest part of going retained is convincing their clients to pay upfront. Andrea Colabella thought the same thing — until she actually did it, and discovered the anticipation was far worse than the conversation.
Andrea is the founder of Cardea Group, a fully retained executive search firm based in New York City specializing in legal and compliance professionals within investment management. She started cold-calling recruiting agencies in 2005 asking to be hired as a recruiter, found her first mentor, and spent the next 18 years niching further and further — from admin and HR, to software sales, to investment management broadly, to a single laser-focused vertical: legal and compliance at hedge funds, private equity firms, and family offices. She built Cardea Group in 2009 during one of the worst markets in modern financial history. She's a Pinnacle Society member, has placed over 500 professionals, and in 2023 made the full pivot to a 100% retained model.
You'll also hear how she uses recorded video first-round interviews through Hinterview to cut five to eight hours of client interviewing time per search, how she runs weekly steering meetings with retained clients to manage expectations and protect the search process, and why building a reputation as the expert in the room — not just the recruiter who fills the job — has become her most powerful business development tool.
Timestamps
00:00 — Cold-calling her way into recruiting in 2005 Boston
10:42 — Leaving the broad market to go deep in investment management
12:37 — What bad firm culture taught her about running her own shop
23:00 — Recyclability: why candidates in multiple processes all move at once
26:02 — The contingent to engaged to retained journey
30:05 — How retained pricing works: 40/40/20 on total comp
31:43 — Why billing on total compensation changes everything
33:22 — What white glove service actually means operationally
37:26 — Converting existing clients: anticipation is worse than the conversation
39:33 — Hosting in-person industry events as a BD strategy
44:14 — Weekly steering meetings and defensive calendar blocking
53:16 — The retained pitch and 52-day average time to close
54:36 — Using recorded video interviews to cut client interviewing time
Connect with Andrea Colabella
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colabella/ 🌐 Cardea Group: https://thecardeagroup.com
This episode is sponsored by Atlas
🤖 The AI-first recruitment platform that captures every conversation, surfaces candidates through natural language search, and has driven 40%+ EBITDA growth and 80%+ increases in monthly billings for agencies. Get your exclusive listener offer: https://recruitwithatlas.com
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