Executive Search · Basic Search
Basic Search
For stations that have the internal capacity to run interviews but need help building a strong national candidate pool to interview from. We handle the recruiting and the outreach, deliver every applicant and every résumé, and step back so your committee can take it from there. Six to eight weeks from kickoff to delivery of the pool.
When to choose this
A Basic Search is the right engagement when your search committee or HR team has the time, structure, and confidence to run the interview process internally, but you want to start that process with the strongest possible pool of candidates. It works well for senior managers, mid-level leadership openings, and specialized roles where the recruiting reach matters more than the interview support.
Two questions help decide. Will your committee personally manage the interview rounds, scheduling, and decision-making once a pool is in hand? Is the recruiting reach, more than the process support, the part of the search that your team needs help with? If yes to both, this is the right level.
What you receive
A position posting that reaches the field
Your role is posted to the Livingston Jobs page, which averages several hundred unique visitors a month, almost all of them in or adjacent to public media.
A targeted email to our Job Alerts database
The details of the role are sent to a targeted subset of our database of nearly 2,000 qualified experts who have explicitly asked to hear from us about new opportunities.
An advertising plan built around what actually works
We develop the advertising campaign with you, drawing on years of source-by-source analytics to identify the channels that deliver qualified, diverse candidates for your kind of role. Advertising is purchased separately, in a budget you set.
Direct outreach by senior recruiters
Our recruiters make the phone calls themselves. They work their personal networks and our extensive résumé database to reach people with directly relevant experience, encouraging them to apply or to recommend someone who should. This is often the most productive part of the search. The Basic Search commits to 35 completed contacts.
Résumé collection through our advanced intake portal
If you prefer, applications come through the Livingston intake portal, which gives your team secure access to every application and every supporting document. If you would rather use your own system, that works too.
The full applicant pool, delivered to you
At the close of recruiting, we compile the entire pool with every résumé and every cover letter and hand it to your committee. From that point forward, the interview, evaluation, and selection are yours to run.
Communication with unsuccessful candidates
Once your committee has chosen finalists, we follow up with the candidates who were not selected. It is a small thing that matters: every public-media professional remembers how they were treated by a search firm, and we want them to remember Livingston, and your station, well.
Timeline
A Basic Search runs six to eight weeks from kickoff to the delivery of the candidate pool.
Diversity outcomes
Across all of our searches, 85% of finalist pools (the three to five candidates a client interviews in person) and 65% of selected candidates have been people of color, women, or both. These outcomes are not the product of a separate "diversity track." They are the product of the way every Livingston search is designed: recruiting broadly, applying structured, consistent screening, and partnering with affinity networks across public radio and television.
Discuss whether this is the right level.
We respond to every inquiry personally within two business days.