Graduate Associate Consultant in Leeds

I'm working with a leading executive search firm working exclusively with private equity firms and their portfolio companies across Europe and North America. They partner with clients to secure investment and back-office professionals, before their portfolio division introduces CEO, CFO and COO profiles into the businesses they acquire. Since 2017, they've enjoyed continuous, uninterrupted growth, and they're now expanding the team again off the back of it.

This isn't generalist, high-volume recruitment. It's a specialist, research-led search business, and everything about how they operate reflects that: a dedicated support team handles your admin, from research to CV formatting and job specs, so you spend your time on the work that actually moves the needle. There are no arbitrary KPIs designed to keep a boss happy, and genuine flexibility over how and when you work. What you will find is a culture built entirely around self-development, where investment in you personally is treated as inseparable from the growth of the business. Average placement fees sit at around £87,000, with the firm's record fee well in excess of £250,000, giving a sense of the calibre of work you'd be involved in. For graduates who commit to that, realistic earnings of £80,000 by the end of year two are firmly on the table.

Who they're looking for:

• A 2:1 degree or above
• A demonstrable track record of success, whether academic, extracurricular, sporting or otherwise
• Genuinely ambitious, with ownership over your own growth and progression
• Resilient, hardworking and comfortable being challenged
• Team-oriented: they win as a team and lose as a team, so ego has no place here
• Coachable and open to feedback, with a real appetite for self-improvement

What the role involves:

• Working on genuine executive search assignments, placing senior investment and C-suite professionals into private equity-backed businesses
• Conducting meticulous, research-led candidate identification, rather than relying on job boards or generic sourcing
• Building deep, specialist knowledge of the private equity market and the companies operating within it
• Partnering closely with clients to understand their business and hiring needs at a genuinely consultative level
• Managing search assignments from brief through to placement, supported by a dedicated admin and research team
• Being measured on genuine improvement and development, not arbitrary targets

What's on offer:

• £26-30k starting salary plus commission
• Realistic earnings of £80,000 by the end of your second year
• Average placement fees of circa £87,000, with a record fee well in excess of £250,000
• A culture built entirely around self-development and personal growth, with serious investment in your progression
• Dedicated support for admin and research, so your time is spent on high-value work
• Genuine flexibility and autonomy over your day, without needing to ask permission for lunch, appointments or the odd day working from home
• No arbitrary KPIs, measured on real improvement instead
• A close, collaborative team culture where you win and lose together

If you've got the ambition and the track record, they'll invest properly in the rest. If you've graduated with a strong degree from a highly competitive university and a genuine record of success behind you, and you want a career built around self-development rather than generic sales targets, get in touch.