What is Fractional Recruitment?
Fractional Recruitment is part-time recruitment support for your business, with capacity and responsibilities agreed around your hiring priorities. You work directly with Kristina, combining recruitment delivery with advice on role scope, candidate trade-offs and the decisions that move a search forward.
The recruiter’s involvement is fractional; the people you hire can be permanent employees. Executive search is part of the offering, alongside GTM and other strategic appointments.
Who is Fractional Recruitment suitable for?
“We have important hires to make, but I cannot keep running every part of the search myself.”
For founders and leadership teams at Seed to Series B technology companies when:
- You need hiring support before a full-time recruiter: there is meaningful work to deliver, but insufficient ongoing demand for a permanent recruitment role.
- Founder time is limiting progress: sourcing, screening and follow-up compete with running the business.
- Candidates miss the brief: you need closer calibration on the experience and business context that actually matter.
- A strategic hire needs discretion: a senior appointment or replacement requires carefully managed outreach.
- The brief is evolving: you need someone who can challenge requirements constructively while keeping recruitment moving.
For VC operating and platform partners, this is a referral option when a portfolio founder needs an experienced recruitment partner for agreed priorities.
When is the right time for this?
When you are ready to approach candidates and have the authority, budget and leadership time to make hiring decisions. It can support a new search, a stalled appointment or recruitment from a Strategic Talent Map.
You do not need to commission an Audit or Map first. The engagement starts with the information you already have and the hiring work you need delivered.
Why book Fractional Recruitment?
The search should improve as you learn from candidates. Weekly calibration connects market feedback to your priorities: which requirements remain essential, which backgrounds merit consideration and whether a different scope could deliver more for the business.
Kristina brings a decade of hiring experience across executive and GTM appointments, has hired leaders across the US and EMEA, and has designed and built the teams around many of them. That experience informs both the appointment and the organisation it needs to work within.
Who should not buy Fractional Recruitment?
This service requires an agreed retainer and access to the people making hiring decisions.
- You want a contingency-only brief, paid only on placement.
- The search has no approved hiring decision behind it yet.
- You only need to understand who is in the market. For this, the Strategic Talent Map is the more relevant starting point.
What do you get with Talent Ascent Fractional Recruitment?
The written agreement defines the searches, capacity and stages Talent Ascent will own. Depending on the mandate, this covers:
- A calibrated hiring brief: outcomes, role scope, evidence to look for and agreed trade-offs
- Targeted sourcing and discreet outreach: identify and engage people relevant to the brief, including selected Map profiles where available
- Candidate conversations and assessment notes: test motivation, experience and fit against agreed criteria, with open questions for hiring leaders
- Recruitment coordination: maintain candidate communication and progress the agreed interview and offer stages
- Weekly calibration: review the pipeline, candidate feedback, decisions and changes to priorities or scope
- Hiring-manager advice: surface risks and alternative profiles, and consider whether an adjustment to the role could better support your roadmap
Hiring leaders retain interview and appointment decisions. A standalone company audit, full talent mapping report or wider organisational redesign is separately scoped.
What information does Talent Ascent require to deliver Fractional Recruitment?
- Your hiring priorities and business objectives
- Role briefs and compensation parameters
- Locations and target timing
- Decision-makers and interview availability
- Existing candidates and suppliers
- Confidentiality requirements
- Access to the recruitment tools and information needed for the stages Talent Ascent will manage
What is the process for booking Fractional Recruitment with Talent Ascent?
- Schedule an intro call with Talent Ascent to discuss the roles and where you need support.
- Priorities, capacity, responsibilities, confidentiality and commercial terms are agreed in writing.
- A kickoff session calibrates the brief and the working arrangements.
- Recruitment proceeds with weekly review sessions and agreed candidate feedback deadlines.
The intro call covers the roles, where you need support and whether a retainer fits the mandate.
How much does Talent Ascent Fractional Recruitment cost?
By agreement. Fractional Recruitment is retainer-based, with the fee and engagement terms agreed around the roles, complexity, capacity and delivery responsibilities. Your proposal sets out the commercial terms before work begins.
How does the cost of Talent Ascent Fractional Recruitment compare with a standard agency fee?
Compare the total agreed engagement cost with the agency quote for the same roles and recruitment stages. Against a salary-linked placement fee, consider how the cost changes across the appointments you expect to make. Against a retained search proposal, compare scope, access to the person delivering the work and time committed.
Include your team’s screening, coordination and interview time in both cases. Fractional Recruitment provides agreed capacity and close partnership; the cost comparison depends on your scope and the actual quotes, rather than an assumed agency percentage.
How does Fractional Recruitment compare with Fractional Hiring Leadership?
Fractional Hiring Leadership puts a hiring leader inside the business one or two days a week to own the hiring plan, the pipeline and the offer decisions, and to build your managers and interviewers up to run it.
Fractional Recruitment delivers agreed searches: the brief, sourcing, outreach, candidate conversations and coordination for named appointments. The two can run together; neither requires the other.
What are the alternatives to Talent Ascent Fractional Recruitment?
| Route | What you get | Typical cost | When it’s the better choice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead recruitment internally | Sourcing, candidate communication and coordination handled by your team, budgeted alongside the interviews | Internal time | Your team has the time and the expertise |
| Agency or retained search firm | A specialist network and its commercial model; compare who delivers the work and how the brief will be calibrated | Placement or retained fee | Its specialism and network fit the mandate |
| Hire a full-time recruiter | Permanent ongoing capacity; allow for hiring and onboarding that person before they can take on the work | Salary | Sustained demand justifies a permanent role |
| Fractional Recruitment | Agreed searches delivered by the person you meet, with weekly calibration and advice on scope and trade-offs | By agreement | Important hires to make, with no case yet for a full-time recruiter |
FAQ
What does a fractional recruiter do?
A fractional recruiter works with your business for an agreed portion of their capacity. Talent Ascent can cover sourcing, candidate conversations, coordination and hiring advice, with the responsibilities defined around your searches.
Can Talent Ascent find a VP Sales, GTM leader or executive?
These are core areas of focus. The starting point is what the person must achieve in your business, including the stage, market and team they will operate in. The search then tests relevant experience against those requirements.
Can you support senior technical or specialist appointments?
Yes, where the mandate fits Kristina’s experience and the agreed scope. Technical evaluation is planned with the relevant hiring leaders so specialist claims are tested appropriately.
How is this different from the Audit and Strategic Talent Map?
The Competitive Talent Architecture Audit examines comparable company structures. Strategic Talent Map provides named profiles and research before outreach. Fractional Recruitment engages candidates and progresses hiring. Existing findings inform the next stage; you do not need to buy all three.
Is this embedded recruitment or executive search?
It can involve both. Talent Ascent works closely with your team as an embedded recruitment partner for the agreed priorities; confidential executive search can be one of those priorities. Fractional Recruitment is the service name for that arrangement.
How much founder involvement is needed?
Expect weekly calibration and timely decisions on candidates. Talent Ascent takes on the agreed recruitment work, while you and your hiring leaders remain involved in interviews, selling the opportunity and choosing whom to hire.
Can a VC partner introduce a portfolio company?
Yes. An introduction is useful when a founder has live hiring priorities and needs delivery capacity alongside commercial advice.
Have additional questions?
Contact us, or reach out to us via WhatsApp directly, and we will be happy to help.