Job Placement · Executive & Director+ · Chief Operating Officer
BEG runs a milestone-fee, direct-hire search for chief operating officers, a seat defined entirely by the CEO it pairs with, so the split between what the CEO keeps and what the COO runs gets settled before candidates are approached. Fees are billed on search progress, not a single contingency payout, and BEG is not a staffing agency. Average fill time is 23 to 35 days with an 86 percent fill rate.
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TL;DR
Span of control is the number that actually defines a COO search: how many senior operators report in, and what operating budget sits under this seat once the CEO keeps strategy and capital allocation. BEG writes that scope down, in the cadence of budget reviews and the functions that report up, before a single candidate is approached, then runs a Tier VI, milestone-billed direct-hire search against it.
The Hiring Problem
Every COO seat is sized by its span of control, not its title, so the real question a finalist is asking is how many senior operators and how much operating budget actually report up to this chair. Leave that undefined and three different people in the process, the CEO, the board, and the recruiter, will describe three different jobs.
How the Search Runs
BEG runs four stages for a COO search, and the CEO-COO split has to be written down before stage one is finished.
| Step | What it requires | Where it stalls |
|---|---|---|
| Write down the split | Document what the CEO keeps and what the COO owns across every function that delivers the product or service, signed off by both the CEO and the board. | Without a written span of control, the CEO, the board, and the recruiter each describe a different job to the same finalist, and the gap surfaces in the second interview, not the first. |
| Build the target list | Source against the operating budget size and the number of senior operators reporting in, not the COO title alone. | Title matching alone surfaces people who ran one function well, sales or manufacturing, say, rather than someone who has held every operating function under one budget at once. |
| Vet the CEO-COO working relationship | Test how each finalist would actually divide decisions with this specific CEO, not a generic partnership question. | Partnership sounds fine in a general interview question and breaks down the first time this CEO wants a call made fast and the finalist wants to build consensus first. |
| Close with the split in writing | Put the agreed split, the operating budget and the reporting structure in the offer itself, not a verbal understanding. | Push the span-of-control conversation past the start date and the new COO spends the first quarter negotiating scope instead of running it, the ambiguity the search was supposed to close. |
Span of control has to be a number, not a phrase, before sourcing starts, how many functions, how large an operating budget, how often this seat reviews results with the CEO. That is what keeps a COO search inside the 23 to 35 day average instead of restarting once a finalist hears three versions of the job.
Milestone Billing Against Contingency
The billing rhythm mirrors the seat itself. BEG releases the Tier VI fee in stages as the search clears milestones, the same cadence a COO later runs operating reviews on. A contingency recruiter works differently, collecting 20 to 25 percent of first year cash compensation in one payment the day someone starts, with nothing riding on whether the operating split was ever actually settled first.
What This Search Costs Against Contingency
Benchmarked against the $253,390 90th percentile for general and operations managers, the pay band a strong internal operating candidate actually sits in, a 20 percent contingency fee would run $50,678, and BEG’s Tier VI fee, $33,440 to $40,128, covers 66 to 79 percent of it source. Measured instead against the $213,990 chief executive median, the wider comparison, BEG runs 78 to 94 percent. Either way the fee lands under a contingency invoice, and the operating-manager comparison is the one that reflects who actually fills this chair.
Three Ways to Fill the Seat
Span of control is what makes this seat hard to fill and hard to compare across firms, so the table below is less about the label on the invoice than about which model actually forces the operating split onto paper before anyone is approached.
| Model | Who employs | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| BEG direct-hire | Your company from day one, reporting directly into the CEO’s operating cadence | The Tier VI fee released in stages as the search clears each milestone | The span of control, functions, budget, and reporting rhythm, still needs to be put in writing before anyone is approached |
| Contingency search firm | Also your company, the fee mechanics are the only real difference from BEG | One commission, 20 to 25 percent of first year cash pay, paid in full the day the offer is signed | The CEO and board have already agreed the span of control in writing and just need names to interview |
| Staffing or temp agency | The staffing firm remains the employer of record for the whole engagement | An hourly rate billed for as long as the interim assignment continues | Someone needs to run operations through a transition while the permanent, CEO-paired search is still under way |
Span of control is worth settling before comparing fees at all. For the other two seats sharing this tier, see chief executive officer and chief financial officer, or the executive and director+ hub.
FAQ
BEG’s COO searches close in 23 to 35 days on average, with an 86 percent fill rate across active searches. A search that opens before the CEO-COO split is settled tends to run past that window, since finalists step back once they get conflicting answers about what the seat actually owns.
This seat borrows BEG’s Tier VI milestone fee, shown above, not a percentage commission. At the chief executive median, that fee runs 78 to 94 percent of a 20 percent contingency fee, falling to 66 to 79 percent measured against the general and operations manager 90th percentile, the closer benchmark for a strong operating candidate.
Because every COO seat is defined by the CEO it pairs with, and a finalist wants to know what the CEO keeps and what gets handed over. When that split is not settled before the search opens, candidates who ask get different answers from the CEO and the board, and some step back.
BEG asks the CEO and the board to write down, together, what the CEO keeps and what the COO owns across every function that delivers the product or service. Without that agreement in writing, finalists get conflicting answers and the search stalls at the exact question it should have answered first.
Paid only once someone starts, a contingency recruiter has no incentive to press a client to settle an unresolved CEO-COO split before candidates are approached. BEG’s fee is staged against progress instead, so getting that split in writing early is rewarded, not skipped.
A COO owns the operating model across every function that delivers the product or service company-wide, reporting to the CEO. A general manager owns one site, unit or market end to end, its P&L, staff and customers, reporting to a regional or divisional executive instead of the CEO directly.
None fixed. BLS says top executives typically need a bachelor’s or master’s degree in an area related to their field, such as business or engineering, plus extensive managerial experience in the organization’s specialty, which is the background BEG screens for rather than a specific licence.
BEG tests how each finalist would actually divide decisions with this specific CEO, not a generic partnership question, since a finalist who partners well in the abstract can still clash with a particular CEO’s decision-making style once real operating decisions are on the table.
The CEO this seat pairs with and the CFO who shares its tier each get their own page: see chief executive officer and chief financial officer, or the full executive and director+ hub.
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