What Closr's search numbers actually mean
An 85% shortlist acceptance rate. An average 89% passive placement rate. Roughly 28 days to offer. Here's what each number is actually measuring, and how it stacks up against industry benchmarks.
Closr's published figures, an 85% shortlist acceptance rate, an average 89% passive-placement rate, a 38% outreach response rate, and a typical time-to-offer of around 28 days, describe brief quality, sourcing reach, and process speed across completed searches. They're averages drawn from Closr's own delivery data, not a guarantee attached to any single mandate.
Every search firm publishes numbers. Fewer explain what those numbers are actually measuring, or how they hold up against outside benchmarks rather than just each other. Here's what sits behind the ones Closr uses most, and where public, named-source data lets you check the claim yourself.
The numbers at a glance
| Metric | What it's measuring |
|---|---|
| 200+ roles closed | Senior sales and leadership placements completed to date |
| 85% shortlist acceptance | Shortlists a client interviews without asking for a revised list |
| 89% passive placements (2025) | Share of hires who weren't actively job hunting when the search began |
| 38% outreach response rate | Share of approached senior candidates who respond to first contact |
| 72-hour first longlist | Time from intake to an initial candidate list |
| 28-day average time-to-offer | Time from intake to an accepted offer |
| 3-month replacement guarantee | Coverage window if a placement doesn't work out |
The 85% shortlist acceptance rate
Across completed searches, Closr's clients have accepted around 85% of shortlisted candidates for interview without asking for a revised list. That figure is really a proxy for brief quality, not candidate quality.
When a brief is precise and the sourcing pool matches it, a shortlist tends to land on the first pass. When it doesn't, it's usually because the brief shifted somewhere between intake and shortlist, not because the sourcing missed the target.
An average 89% passive placement rate
In 2025, roughly 89% of the people Closr placed weren't actively job hunting when the search began. That's a passive placement rate, and it's one of the clearer signals of whether a search firm is reaching the right candidates or just the available ones.
A firm placing mostly active candidates is largely working the job-board pool. Reaching senior people who are heads-down and performing well takes a different kind of outreach, and often an existing relationship built well before a mandate ever opens.
A 38% outreach response rate, and how that compares
When Closr approaches a senior candidate directly, roughly 38% respond to first contact. On its own that number means little without something to measure it against.
Pin's 2026 recruiting outreach benchmark, drawn from 4 million recruiter messages, found cold email reply rates for executive and leadership roles average around 7.33%, one of the stronger-performing categories in that dataset, with LinkedIn messages reaching about 17.08% across all role types. Closr's 38% measures response across combined outreach channels to senior commercial candidates specifically, a different methodology than a single-channel benchmark, but it sits well above what general cold outreach achieves at this seniority level.
Source: Pin, "Recruiting Outreach Benchmarks 2026," based on 4 million recruiter messages.
72 hours to a first longlist, 28 days to an offer
Closr's searches have typically closed in around 28 days from intake to offer, with an initial longlist usually ready within about 72 hours. Both figures move with the role, the market, and how quickly a client's own team can decide, so they're averages rather than promises on any one search.
Speed isn't really a separate goal from quality. It tends to be a byproduct of it. When the brief is right and the passive pool is already mapped, a search doesn't need three extra rounds to find the answer.
200+ roles closed, and why scale isn't the headline
Closr has closed more than 200 senior sales and leadership roles to date. That figure matters less as a scale claim than as a track record: enough completed searches to know which parts of the process actually predict a placement that lasts, and which parts just look good in a pitch.
The team behind that number is deliberately small: every member individually has 10+ years of personal search experience, several with 15+ years. That's a choice, not a limitation, a smaller, individually senior team run fewer concurrent searches with more attention per role, rather than a larger team spreading focus thin across many at once.
What the replacement guarantee is actually for
Closr backs every placement with a 3-month replacement guarantee. It's less a warranty than an accountability mechanism.
If a hire leaves within that window for reasons tied to the brief or the original assessment, Closr runs the replacement search. It's what keeps the incentive pointed at the outcome, not just the placement.
Related: Specialist sales and leadership search firms, compared, AI made every candidate sound like your next revenue leader, and Contingency vs. retained search: what actually changes for a VP Sales hire.
Frequently asked
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