Senior Recruitment Consultant / Executive Search Consultant
Flavours, Fragrance, Ingredients, Chemicals, Nutrition or Pharma
Base salary c. £35,000–£45,000 + high-earning commission
Hybrid, flexible, grown-up working environment
Some recruitment jobs want you in a suit at 8am, at your desk five days a week, measuring success by how long you sat in your chair.
This isn’t one of them.
This is for an experienced recruiter who knows how to build relationships, run proper search work and win credibility with senior people. Someone who is already beyond entry-level recruitment and has no interest in becoming a CV-flinger in a KPI circus.
You might already recruit in flavours, fragrance or ingredients that would be ideal.
But perhaps you’re in specialty chemicals, nutrition, nutraceuticals, personal care, home care, food ingredients, APIs, CDMOs or another technical B2B market where you speak to commercial leaders, technical experts, R&D people and senior stakeholders every day.
This boutique international search business works on senior, specialist mandates across technical and life-science-adjacent markets. The work is higher value, more consultative and far less transactional than most recruitment environments. Think retained and exclusive assignments, global markets, senior hiring managers and searches that actually require brainpower.
The fees are strong. The expectations are commercial, but sane. And the culture is built around trust, not theatrics.
You’ll have the freedom to manage your time like an adult. Need to do a school run, a gym session, a late US call or a bit of life admin in the middle of the day? Fine. The focus is on outcomes, not optics.
That matters, because the person joining this business won’t be treated like a junior and won’t be managed like one either.
What you’ll probably bring:
* At least 18 months in recruitment
* Experience recruiting senior, professional or executive-level roles
* A background in retained, exclusive or consultative search, or a genuine desire to move into that style of work
* Exposure to a technical, specialist or life-science-adjacent market such as chemicals, ingredients, nutrition, personal care, food ingredients, pharma or similar
* Evidence of decent commercial performance, ideally six-figure annual billings or clear signs you’re on that path
* The confidence to talk numbers, fees, markets and results like someone who really knows their desk
You’ll probably suit this especially well if you’ve come from a smaller or mid-sized business where you’ve had to build properly, rather than relying on a giant brand name to do the heavy lifting for you.
Why would you leave a good recruitment job for this one?
Because this offers something a lot of firms promise and very few actually deliver:
Real flexibility.
No performative presenteeism. No pointless control. No being treated like a child.
Serious earning potential.
This is a high-fee, specialist market with commission designed to reward proper billers. The numbers genuinely stack up.
Retained and exclusive search.
Less scattergun contingency nonsense. More real headhunting, market mapping and value-led client work.
A niche that’s everywhere.
Technical, international, commercially important markets where clients need expertise and candidates aren’t everywhere.
A chance to shape something.
This is not joining a giant machine. The next hire will have room to build a market, make a name for themselves and potentially grow something around them.
A more adult culture.
Low ego. No bro-sales-floor energy. No chest-beating LinkedIn nonsense. Just good work, good relationships and good money.
This role will appeal to recruiters who still have ambition, but have outgrown the idea that ambition has to come wrapped in micromanagement, noise and 12-hour office days.
You can be driven here.
You can earn very well here.
You can also have a life.
If that sounds like the sort of move you’ve been thinking about, get in touch.
Even if your CV isn’t perfect or fully up to date, send what you have. A good conversation is a much better place to start than a polished document.