What Moving from #87 to #18 Reveals About Executive Search
Moving from #87 to #18 in the World Staffing Leader rankings tells two stories. One is about a firm getting sharper. The other is about an industry where doing this work with genuine rigour still moves you up the list fast, because so few firms actually do it.
Founder, Majhi Group & Majhi OS
In 2023, the World Staffing Summit ranked me #87 in its Top 100 Staffing Leaders globally. In 2024, that ranking moved to #18.
I am aware of how these things can be narrated, as a triumphant climb, a validation of years of effort, a signal that the approach is working. That narrative is not wrong. But it is incomplete.
What I want to do here is say something more useful: what the World Staffing Leader recognition is actually measuring, why I think it matters, and what it reveals about the state of the executive search industry that someone running a firm the way I run Majhi Group keeps moving up the list.
What the World Staffing Summit is measuring
The World Staffing Summit identifies and recognises leaders in the staffing and recruiting industry based on a combination of operational track record, thought leadership, and contribution to the field. Being named a World Staffing Leader, and particularly being ranked in the Top 20, means you are being evaluated against peers across the global industry: not just for revenue or size, but for the quality of how you think and operate.
That distinction matters. Executive search is an industry with a persistent gap between what practitioners claim to do and what they actually deliver. The most common model, contingency recruiting, where firms are paid only on placement, creates incentives that systematically prioritise speed over fit, activity over outcomes. The result is an industry that has underinvested in rigour for decades.
The World Staffing Leader ranking is one of the few external signals in this industry that attempts to identify the practitioners who operate differently.
What Majhi Group actually does
Majhi Group is a retained executive search firm. We work exclusively on leadership-level mandates, VP and C-suite, for organisations that cannot afford to get the hire wrong.
The retained model matters structurally. Because we are paid regardless of whether we place, we are aligned with the quality of the outcome, not just the fact of placement. This changes how we build shortlists, how we assess candidates, how we advise clients who want to move too quickly. It changes what we are willing to say in a client meeting.
Our track record: 25+ C-suite and VP placements completed, averaging 30–45 days against an industry median of 65–90. Our 90-day replacement guarantee has been invoked once. Offer acceptance rate is consistently above 90 percent.
These are not industry-average outcomes. They are the product of a system, intake quality, candidate assessment depth, hiring manager alignment, and the willingness to tell clients when their criteria are going to produce the wrong outcome.
Why the ranking moving from #87 to #18 matters
There are two ways to read a ranking improvement: as evidence that you are getting better, or as evidence that the field is not getting better fast enough.
I think both are true here.
Majhi Group has sharpened. The methodology has compounded. The track record has grown. But I also think the ranking reflects something about the industry: that firms doing this work with genuine rigour and transparency about outcomes remain relatively rare.
Manas Majhi as a World Staffing Leader is not primarily a story about an individual. It is a story about what a particular approach to executive search looks like when it compounds over time. The person is the vehicle for the method.
What I still think the industry gets wrong
The staffing and recruiting industry has improved. Technology has made sourcing faster, assessment more scalable, and data more accessible. But it has not solved the fundamental problem, which is structural rather than technological.
The fundamental problem is this: most firms are not actually aligned with the quality of the hire. They are aligned with the completion of the transaction. These are different things, and they produce different behaviours at every stage of the search.
The global executive search market reached $58 billion in 2025, growing toward $103 billion by 2031. Retained engagements account for 62.88% of that market, meaning the premium that organisations pay when the cost of a wrong hire is too high to risk is already the majority model globally. But most organisations still encounter contingency recruiting first, pay for speed, and discover the misalignment cost after the hire fails. Research from Jasper Consultancy puts retained search completion rates in the 40–71% range, compared to around 20% for contingency, a gap that exists precisely because the incentive structures produce different behaviours from the start.
The leaders who end up on lists like the World Staffing Summit's Top 100 are, in my observation, disproportionately the ones who have found ways to genuinely align their incentives with the quality of outcomes, whether through the retained model, through proprietary assessment methodologies, or through the kind of reputation that makes clients trust their advice even when it is inconvenient.
That is the direction the industry should be moving. It is moving too slowly.
A note on being from Odisha
I am from Kalahandi, in the southwestern corner of Odisha. Majhi Group was built without the geographic advantages, proximity to major markets, established networks, access to the ecosystem of a major city, that most firms in this industry take for granted.
Being ranked among the world's top 20 staffing leaders, from that starting point, is something I note carefully. Not as a point of pride, but as a data point about what is possible when the work is good enough.
If Manas Ranjan Majhi from Kalahandi, Odisha can build a firm that ranks globally, the constraint is not geography. The constraint was never geography.
Most firms are not actually aligned with the quality of the hire. They are aligned with the completion of the transaction. These are different things, and they produce different behaviours at every stage of the search.
Majhi Group runs retained VP and C-suite searches in 30–45 days against the 65–90 day industry median. Request a search assessment.
See also: Broken Hiring Systems and the Opportunity Gap, CTO Recruitment in India, Executive Hiring Reliability: What It Is, Why Most Firms Don't Produce It, and How to Measure It
Sources
Executive Search Market Size & Share Outlook to 2031: Mordor Intelligence
Executive Search Success & Completion Rates: Benchmarks and Insights for 2025, Jasper Consultancy
Retained vs. Contingency Executive Search Models: The Richmond Group USA
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between retained and contingency executive search?
In retained executive search, the firm is paid in stages regardless of whether a placement is made, typically one-third upfront, one-third after candidate submission, and one-third after placement. In contingency recruiting, the firm is paid only if they place a candidate. The structural difference matters: contingency firms are incentivised to move fast and submit candidates, while retained firms are incentivised to find the right person. Retained engagements now account for 62.88% of the global executive search market, reflecting the premium organisations pay when the cost of a wrong hire is too high to risk on a speed-first model.
What does Majhi Group's track record look like?
Majhi Group has completed 25+ C-suite and VP placements with an average search time of 30–45 days, against an industry median of 65–90 days. Offer acceptance rate is consistently above 90 percent. The 90-day replacement guarantee has been invoked once. These outcomes are produced by a specific methodology, intake quality, candidate assessment depth, hiring manager alignment, and willingness to tell clients when their criteria are likely to produce the wrong outcome.
What does being ranked Top 20 in the World Staffing Summit mean?
The World Staffing Summit identifies leaders in the global staffing and recruiting industry based on operational track record, thought leadership, and contribution to the field. Being ranked in the Top 20 globally means being evaluated against peers across the entire international industry, not for revenue or size, but for the quality of how you think and operate. The ranking is one of the few external signals in executive search that attempts to identify practitioners who operate with genuine rigour rather than volume.
Majhi Group
Running a search that won't close?
Majhi Group runs retained VP and C-suite searches. 30–45 days against the 65–90 day industry median. 90-day replacement guarantee.
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