Job Placement · Executive & Director+ · General Manager
BEG runs a milestone-fee, direct-hire search for general managers, the seat that owns one site’s P&L, staff and customers end to end and is usually filled by promoting the assistant manager already there. 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
Location, not the resume, is what stalls a general manager search: this seat owns one site's P&L, staff, and customers end to end, and the candidates who can run it well are either already local or have to be sold on relocating to a specific place, not just a job. BEG runs the Tier IV search against the site's actual numbers and the location question together from the first call, priced at about the same rate as contingency against the broadest pay benchmark, a fact this page states rather than rounds away.
The Hiring Problem
The site does not move, so the candidate has to, and a posting that treats location as a formality gets ignored by anyone already settled somewhere else. Pricing the seat off the flat all-industry median compounds the problem, since general managers who have actually run a comparable unit are paid well above it.
How the Search Runs
BEG runs four stages for a general manager search, and location is weighed alongside the P&L from the first conversation.
| Step | What it requires | Where it stalls |
|---|---|---|
| Define the unit and the location | Confirm the site’s P&L size, staff count and customer base, and whether the search needs a local candidate or one willing to relocate. | Mention the site’s location in passing and candidates apply first, then withdraw once they realize where they would actually have to live. |
| Build the target list | Source against candidates who have run a comparable unit, benchmarked to the professional services or upper quartile pay, not the all-industry median. | General managers who have actually run a unit this size are paid closer to the $151,040 professional services figure than the $105,770 flat median the posting was likely written against. |
| Vet for full-unit ownership | Confirm each finalist has owned a site’s P&L, staff and compliance directly, not managed a unit under someone else’s budget. | Knowing the site and owning its P&L are not the same skill, and the gap between them, however capable the internal assistant manager is, shows up the first time a budget misses. |
| Close on the site, not just the title | Present the offer against the specific site’s P&L and market, with relocation support addressed directly if it applies. | Leave relocation terms and the local cost of living out of the written offer and a finalist who has already done that math quietly walks, often without saying why. |
Treating location as a real variable from the first call, not a detail mentioned after an offer is drafted, is what keeps this search inside the 23 to 35 day average instead of restarting when a finalist finds out where the site actually is.
Milestone Billing Against Contingency
A contingency recruiter is paid the same 20 to 25 percent of first year cash compensation whether or not the candidate ever actually agrees to move, collected the day someone accepts. BEG’s Tier IV fee is staged across the search instead, which means confirming that a finalist will genuinely relocate, or already lives nearby, happens before the largest piece of the fee is earned, not after.
What This Search Costs Against Contingency
Run the arithmetic at the flat $105,770 all-industry median and 20 percent contingency is $21,154; BEG’s Tier IV fee, $19,080 to $22,896, comes to 90 to 108 percent of that, close enough that this page calls it even rather than a discount. Run it instead at the $151,040 professional services median or the $167,280 75th percentile, both closer to what a comparable general manager actually earns, and BEG drops to 57 to 76 percent source. The flat median undercounts the seat; the industry-specific numbers do not.
Three Ways to Fill the Seat
The three rows below price the same permanent, single-site seat differently, but only one of them treats where the site actually sits as something to screen for during the search rather than something to discover at the offer stage.
| Model | Who employs | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| BEG direct-hire | Your company, with the general manager reporting straight into the site from day one | The Tier IV fee released in stages as the search confirms fit for the site, not just the title | The site needs a permanent P&L owner and whether someone will actually live near it is still an open question |
| Contingency search firm | Also your company, the difference from BEG is entirely in the invoice | One commission, 20 to 25 percent of first year cash pay, due the day the candidate accepts | Someone local or already willing to relocate has already been identified and the company just needs the search run |
| Staffing or temp agency | The staffing agency keeps the manager on its own books for the length of the assignment | An hourly rate for as long as the site needs the coverage | The site needs someone running it this month, not a permanent owner of its P&L and staff |
Location is the variable that decides whether this search closes on time. The full executive and director+ hub lists every tier from senior manager through C-suite for comparison.
FAQ
BEG’s general manager searches close in 23 to 35 days on average, with an 86 percent fill rate across active searches. A search that treats the site’s location as a footnote tends to run past that window, since finalists withdraw late once relocation or commute reality sets in.
This seat borrows BEG’s Tier IV milestone fee, shown above, not a percentage commission. Against the all-industry general and operations manager median, BEG runs about 90 to 108 percent of a 20 percent contingency fee, roughly the same, not clearly cheaper, though BEG is 63 to 76 percent of contingency measured against the professional services median.
About the same at the broadest, all-industry benchmark, and BEG says so directly rather than rounding up. Measured against the professional services median or the 75th percentile pay band, both closer to what a comparable general manager actually earns, BEG runs 57 to 76 percent of a 20 percent contingency fee instead.
Because the seat is tied to a specific site, and a posting benchmarked to the all-industry median misses what a comparable general manager actually earns elsewhere. When the outside search stalls on pay or location, the site often ends up promoting the assistant manager who is already there.
BEG asks for the site’s actual P&L size, staff count and customer base, and whether the role needs a local candidate or one willing to relocate. Without the location question answered up front, the search sources against the title instead of the real constraint on who can take the job.
Paid only once someone starts, a contingency recruiter has no reason to weigh whether a strong candidate will actually move to or commute to this specific site. BEG’s fee is staged against progress instead, so location fit is screened for early, not discovered late at the offer stage.
A general manager owns one site, unit or market end to end, its P&L, staff and compliance, reporting to a regional or divisional executive. A director owns a corporate department’s budget, headcount plan and results company-wide, without the single-site or single-market boundary a general manager works inside.
None fixed. BLS says most general and operations managers hired from outside need lower level supervisory or management experience in a related field, and that some general managers move into higher level managerial or executive positions from this seat, which is the background BEG screens for.
The VP of Operations seat above this one owns every site at once instead of just one, and the Chief Operating Officer search sits a tier above that. See both, or the full executive and director+ hub.
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