There are three types of candidate in any market. Active, passive and inactive. Understanding the difference is the difference between reaching good people and reaching the best ones.
Active candidates are applying for roles. They are on job boards, updating their CVs, talking to multiple recruiters. They are the easiest to find, and every recruiter has access to them.
Passive candidates are not actively looking but are open to a conversation. They will respond to a well-crafted approach. Most good recruiters operate here.
Then there is the third group. The inactive. The people who are not looking, not thinking about moving, and not on any recruiter's radar. They are too busy delivering. Too embedded in complex, high-stakes work to be browsing job boards or answering LinkedIn messages.
These are the transformation directors running billion-dollar carve-outs. The programme leaders providing independent assurance to sponsors on deals that cannot afford to fail. The ERP specialists delivering separations so complex that only a handful of people in any market can do them.
They do not engage with recruiters. They engage with people who understand their work well enough to earn the conversation.
The market bears this out. Demand for interim technology leadership is climbing fast: Business Talent Group's 2025 report found a 20 percent year-on-year rise in demand for interim CIOs, CTOs and CISOs, with independent talent increasingly pulled directly into carve-outs, integrations and transformations. The best of these people are not on the market. They are on an assignment.
Where we operate
Not in the active pool. Not even only in the passive pool. We work in the space where the best people in PE technology advisory sit, and we reach them because we understand what they do, why it matters, and what would need to be true for them to consider a move.
If you are one of those people, you already know that most recruiter messages miss the mark. And if you are a business trying to find them, the point is simple: the talent that matters most is the talent you cannot see.