Navigating Leadership Transitions: The Value of Search Firms as Trusted Partners

Today’s evolving political and social landscape has had a significant impact on the nature of academic and administrative leadership, including how campuses recruit and attract new leaders. A 2025 survey of executive search professionals who focus on higher education, conducted by the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC) in partnership with AGB Search, suggests that institutions may be hesitant to recruit new leaders to fill empty positions or may choose to proceed with an internal recruitment process. Hiring authorities may turn to these options as a result of the many challenges confronting their campuses, such as economic uncertainty and funding cuts. 

At the same time that institutions are navigating these changes to the higher education landscape, Deloitte’s 2025 Higher Education Trends report notes that the turnover rates of top leadership positions in higher education reached an unprecedented high of over 20% between 2022 and 2024. The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges’ (AGB) report, Top Strategic Issues for Boards 2024-2025, keenly notes that leadership succession and support directly impact institutional stability, strategic progress, and long-term success. This report also indicates that frequent turnover in the president’s office can disrupt or delay strategic planning, hinder performance, and erode stakeholder confidence. Churn among all Cabinet-level positions also impacts institutional planning, performance, and confidence. 

The importance of securing ethical, experienced, collaborative, and visionary leaders to serve as presidents/chancellors, provosts, chief officers (e.g., finance and administration, enrollment, student affairs, etc.), deans, and directors is therefore clear. What is also evident is that hiring authorities want to be confident that their process of leadership recruitment and retention will be effective and will help them navigate this period of uncertainty and rapid change in higher education.

Executive search firms can be a strategic and cost-effective part of the solution. In addition to providing access to wide networks and robust databases of qualified candidates, a collaborative, experienced external partner can minimize the risks of a prolonged or failed search, which can add delays, expenses, and stress to an institution seeking a new leader. The right external partner may also assist with creative solutions to recruit and retain the next generation of exceptional leaders. 

Revisiting The Executive Search Firm Advantage: When a Full Search Is Needed

Recruiting forward-thinking leaders who can navigate periods of transition and institutional stress is an objective for many colleges and universities right now. It is also a process that takes considerable time and resources to find the right leader with the ideal skills and approach for your institution.

When a full search is needed to hire a crucial leadership position, an executive search firm can provide the expertise and resources necessary to conduct the search successfully and efficiently, ensuring the successful appointment of a thoroughly vetted candidate who is ready for the role. Search firms provide critical expertise and resources to assist the Board, president/chancellor, provost, or other hiring authority, adding capacity and complementing the resources of internal teams.

Retaining external support can help Boards and hiring authorities: 

• Engage the Campus Community. Including a broad range of stakeholders helps to  identify the key attributes and experiences for a position and establishes buy-in to the process. 
• Ensure Clear Communication. Ensuring clear and regular communications, setting expectations at the outset of the search process, and maintaining internal alignment on key priorities helps to keep searches on-time, transparent, and effective. 
• Preserve Institutional Capacity. Search firms conduct the work that internal leaders may not have the time or resources to do: researching and recruiting candidates, tapping into networks for nominations, having conversations with prospective candidates, building interest in and understanding of the role, conducting reference conversations and other due diligence, and/or sharing knowledge of qualified candidates from prior searches and extensive networks of contacts. 
• Access Broad and Deep Networks of Qualified Candidates. Potential candidates may see an advertisement for a critical hire, but without the ability to connect with an expert who can thoughtfully articulate the nuances of a role in an objective manner, they may be reluctant to pursue a new opportunity or may not immediately see a match.
• Recruit Passive Candidates. The most qualified candidates may not be actively seeking their next opportunity. Executive search consultants can often build enthusiasm for such individuals to explore the new opportunity.
• Maintain Consistency in Candidate Evaluation. Executive search consultants facilitate a process based on best practices to the benefit of the client institution, which includes emphasizing the need to uniformly evaluate candidates based on the agreed-upon attributes and experiences that are presented in the position profile.

Weathering the Storm: Creative Solutions When a Full Search Is Not Possible

Sometimes retaining a search firm to conduct a search from start to finish may not be an immediate possibility. Institutions can still benefit from exploring creative and strategic approaches to ensuring leadership stability and success. External partners can assist with ensuring these strategies are executed fairly and in alignment with the institution’s mission, objectives, and values. 

• Invest in Current Talent. Identifying up-and-coming leaders within an institution and investing in their growth through executive coaching or mentoring is a cost-effective approach to increasing retention and promoting cohesion. Coaching and mentoring can take multiple forms, including identifying skills to develop that will support professional advancement. 
• Explore Non-Traditional Ways to Engage a Search Firm. Search firms may be able to provide support other than the traditional approach to conducting a comprehensive search for an institution’s next permanent leader. 
  • AGB Search, for example, seeks to provide customized executive search services that support our clients’ specific needs in collaboration with Human Resources teams. We provide tailored support ranging from the full search process to a limited scope of work that may only include recruiting a pool of qualified candidates, which is then shared with the institution to review, evaluate, and select semifinalist and finalist candidates for interviews, reference checks, and other forms of due diligence. This approach adds value and capacity to the search process at pricing that is scaled to the scope of work.
  • Hiring authorities may also consider opportunities for multi-search cost reductions and bundling services (e.g., executive search services and executive coaching services for the appointee and/or leadership team), to efficiently secure greater support from an external search firm. We encourage hiring authorities to consider these options when evaluating whether a firm may be able to assist with two or more searches in the pipeline.
• Rethink Interim Leadership. Rethinking the use of interim leaders is becoming more common. Rather than a short-term solution before the appointment of a permanent leader, interim leadership is an opportunity to benefit from an experienced leader up to a year or more to provide stability, while institutions develop and implement strategic or corrective action plans without the pressure of search timelines. Coordinating a search for a permanent leader in concert with the interim leader’s time in office, potentially allowing for overlap to facilitate a smooth transition, is one approach to adapting the search process to an institution’s needs, strategic timeline, and current resources. 

Conclusion

Search firms offer more than extensive networks and databases of candidates. Firms can provide institutions with the knowledge and experience to ensure a successful and effective search, a smooth transition for onboarding leaders, and institutional support between searches. With the right partnership, colleges and universities can feel confident that they are approaching the recruitment of experienced and visionary leaders strategically, efficiently, and effectively.

Are you considering partnering with an executive search firm? See our guide to Finding the Right Partner: Considerations in Selecting a Search Firm. 

About AGB Search
Founded as an affiliate of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), we have a deep and comprehensive understanding of the ideal qualifications for effective higher education leadership. We consider each search to be a partnership that requires flexibility and transparency. With our highly communicative and responsive approach to client relations, we provide a tailored approach to process and pricing, as well as an array of services to support colleges and universities as they seek new leaders and enhance existing teams through executive recruitment services for interim and permanent positions, Executive Coaching, and ExecComp, our compensation evaluation service.