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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