Delivering Exceptional Talent Through a Dedicated, High-Value Approach
When it comes to hiring top-tier talent, businesses need more than just a recruitment service—they need a trusted, strategic partner who delivers results with precision, speed, and market insight.
That’s where Hamlyn Williams’ Retained Search comes in.
We understand that critical hires require dedicated expertise, deep industry knowledge and a proactive, consultative approach. Our retained search model guarantees the highest-caliber candidates through a structured, results-driven methodology that maximizes efficiency, mitigates hiring risks, and ensures long-term success.
What is Retained Search?
Retained search is a premium recruitment service designed for senior, strategic, and business-critical hires. Unlike contingency recruitment, retained search ensures a deeply committed partnership where Hamlyn Williams works exclusively with you to secure the best possible talent for your organisation.
With retained search, we take a proactive, research-led approach to identify and engage passive and active candidates who are the perfect fit for your business. Our specialist recruiters, trained in the latest Retained Search best practices via Retrained Search, are industry experts with the ability to access and attract elite professionals that traditional methods can’t reach.
Why Choose Hamlyn Williams for Retained Search?
Unrivalled Market Expertise
Specialising in niche, regulated, and technical industries, ensuring we understand your market and hiring challenges.
Exclusive Access to High-Caliber Talent
Leveraging our global network, proprietary talent pools, and AI-driven search tools.
Bespoke, Data-Driven Search Methodology
Proven to reduce hiring time, improve
candidate quality, and enhance retention rates.
Commitment to Delivery
A dedicated team working exclusively on your hiring needs, ensuring higher accountability.
Confidential & Strategic Recruitment
For sensitive hires, leadership transitions, or stealth hiring.
Employer Branding & Candidate Experience
Acting as an extension of your
brand to strengthen employer reputation.
Our Retained Search Process
Discovery & Strategy Alignment
We conduct in-depth consultations to understand your hiring needs, company culture, and long-term business objectives.
Talent Mapping & Market Intelligence
We perform extensive market research, competitor benchmarking, and talent mapping.
Executive Search & Proactive Outreach
Using multi-channel engagement strategies to directly engage passive candidates and top-tier executives.
Rigorous Screening & Assessment
Conducting competency-based interviews, technical evaluations, and cultural assessments.
Shortlist Presentation & Hiring Support
Presenting a curated shortlist with detailed candidate insights.
Offer Negotiation & Retention Strategy
Supporting you through negotiation, onboarding, and retention phases.
Who is Retained Search For?
Senior & Executive-Level Appointments – CEO, CFO, CTO, Directors, VP-level hires.
Business-Critical & Confidential Hires – Sensitive leadership transitions and stealth recruitment.
Niche & Hard-to-Fill Roles – Specialist roles in highly regulated and competitive industries.
High-Volume, Strategic Hiring – Expansion projects, new market entries, and leadership team build-outs.
Investing in Excellence:
Our Training in Retained Search
At Hamlyn Williams, we don’t just follow industry best practices—we set them. We have heavily invested in training our recruiters with Retained Search, a world-class executive search methodology.
This ensures:
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Cutting-edge search techniques that guarantee the best candidate results.
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Advanced talent sourcing, engagement, and negotiation strategies.
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A rigorous, research-led approach to executive hiring that maximises ROI for our clients.
Partner with Hamlyn Williams for Retained Search Success
If you’re looking for a strategic, results-driven, and high-touch approach to hiring, Hamlyn Williams’ Retained Search service is the trusted partner you need.
Trusted by leading organisations
It was a pleasure working with Hamlyn Williams. They took the time to understand the company’s needs, my expectations, and were able to provide resumes of highly qualified candidates who fit the criteria. Their communication is exceptional, and they regularly updated me on the candidates' status. They are proactive and someone I strongly recommend.
Michael Bui, Senior Vice President Regulatory Affairs
Hamlyn Williams were able to fill our role professionally and in good time with impressive precision and market knowledge. Their expert understanding of the sector – and those within it, not just in the UK, but globally – played a huge part in them successfully filling the role. They carefully managed the candidate process through a tricky negotiation, and we were delighted with the outcome. We continue to work with Hamlyn Williams on many senior roles.
Lead Partner | EY
As a growing startup, Hamlyn Williams has placed several members of our executive team including CCO, GC & key engineers. We’ve relied on their partnership, obtaining top talent quickly with the ability to elevate culture and build our organization around amazing individuals.
VP Product | Mercury NFT
Their market knowledge of the Fintech Payments space stood out, including swift delivery of stunning candidates, which ultimately led to numerous placements. The attention to detail with what we looked for in candidates was absolutely spot on.
Aliyah Nance | VP of People
I highly recommend establishing a relationship with HW as a trusted recruiting partner. I’ve worked alongside HW for a number of years on our most critical roles within the Cybersecurity domain. HW works with urgency in a very fastpaced, competitive marketplace & takes the time to understand our internal culture.
Jeremy Jones | Lead Recruiter
Hamlyn Williams recently filled a critical role in my company's leadership team. They ran an efficient process, providing strong, well-vetted candidates, one of whom we successfully hired. I was very pleased with the quality of talent presented.
David Thompson | CEO | Osteal TX
Hamlyn Williams understood our very specific needs for candidates that would not just match the skillset but would be a cultural fit. Each candidate was well qualified and their motivations
Tin Lau | Head of Risk
We required highly specialized talent to lead the bank through fast-paced changes in compliance. Our recruiter was resourceful, finding the right fit by soliciting ongoing feedback, making appropriate adjustments, and providing timely follow up.
Terry Salinas | CCO
We have a pool of well-qualified talent & our consultant is quick to respond to any questions. I'd highly recommend using Hamlyn Williams for any Vulnerability Management or Incident Response Roles.
Director Threat & Vulnerability Management
You are extremely knowledgeable within the Life Sciences industry and know the ins and outs of the market. My consultant was able to help me to understand other organizations in the industry and provided me with a holistic perspective of the life-science sector. I’m very impressed with the network Hamlyn Williams have developed and definitely recommend them as a Medical Affairs specialist.
Dr Timothy Low | Regional Medical Head APAC
Efficient, proactive, spot on resources. Pleasant collaboration. My best recommendations
Anette Sikjær Jørgensen
Hamlyn Williams have been effective in building a strong relationship, allowing them to understand our needs and deliver successfully. Their candidates consistently fit our requirements and culture. Their associates are responsive and a great source of insight on labor market outlook and trends.
Patrick Simonnet | Chief Audit Executive
It was a pleasure working with Hamlyn Williams to fill a challenging CMC Director role. They took the time to understand the company’s needs, and my expectations, and were able to provide resumes of highly qualified candidates who fit these criteria. My consultant is proactive without me having to request for additional information, given my busy schedule. I strongly recommend them to fill any opening roles
Stacey Axtell | Chief Administrative Officer
We've been working with HW for over a year now, they helped us fulfill a couple of senior positions and compliance-related positions. I am very pleased with the quality of candidates they provided and enjoy working with their recruiters. They will ask very good questions to make sure they understand our requirements, for each role. They have a great understanding of the talent market and have been able to provide market benchmarks. They act and move fast and follow up closely to ensure each vacancy is well managed. We will continue to work with HW to support our team's growth.
Selina Yang | Human Resources Office | HTX
Hamlyn Williams have supported us with numerous roles in our senior management team. They have been professional throughout the process and have provided high quality candidates, leading to many successful and fruitful hires for PingPong. We look forward to working with Hamlyn Williams on future mandates.
Shujing Sun | HR Manager
We worked with Hamlyn Williams on two US hires - a Compliance Officer and a Licensing Manager. In their search for both roles, they demonstrated a good grasp of the US market - where teams sat, how they were structured and performed, and how they might be a fit for our culture and needs. We hired both the Licensing Manger and Compliance Officer off the back of the Hamlyn Williams process.
Ahmed Badr | Chief Legal & Risk Officer
It was clear you had spent time researching and customizing our search effort. Our team appreciated both your insight to the competitive biotech landscape in Cambridge and your proactive style of communication. In addition, your skilled facilitation with the candidate pre and post offer was highly effective. We certainly would not hesitate to recommend your services and have indeed already engaged your team to potentially fill another role for our company.
Stephanie Guerrera | Senior Director
Hamlyn Williams have a very good understanding of medical affairs in the region, are very passionate about what they do and use a very collaborative consultative approach to achieve the best outcomes. It was a pleasure working with them. I will happily recommend Hamlyn Williams as a Medical Affairs specialists to my colleagues and would be willing to work with her again as a recruitment partner.
Dr Mahmood Alam | Regional Medical Affairs Lead
It’s clear that Hamlyn Williams have a strong eye for talent and your understanding of our business needs and culture was evident in the candidates you submitted. We were very impressed with your thorough assessments and caliber of the individuals.
Alexis Blackman | Senior Vice President, People
Hamlyn Williams takes the time to understand our needs to effectively target potential candidates with the required skilled sets and match them with the organisations culture. They provide additional insight and context into potential candidates so that we can easily identify how the candidate will fit within the organisation as opposed to just delivering a pile of resumes.
Greg Lucas | MD Risk Management
