Head to head
Heidrick & Struggles vs JM Search
Named side by side in 4 executive search firms questions. Heidrick & Struggles came out ahead on 4; on 0 the sample cannot tell them apart.
Over 4 executive search firms questions measured by The Shortlist Report over 700 AI responses, Heidrick & Struggles was named more often than JM Search on 4 of them, JM Search on 0, and the sample could not separate them on the remaining 0.
How Heidrick & Struggles and JM Search differ
This data does not establish which firm is better. Heidrick & Struggles’s strongest result relative to JM Search was on “What are the best executive search firms?” (100.0% versus 24.0%), while JM Search’s strongest result relative to Heidrick & Struggles was on “Our executive search is not working. Who can take over?” (7.4% versus 42.9%).
Those are the clearest differences in the shared sample. They measure which firm AI assistants surfaced more often for each buyer question, not service quality or client results.
Question by question
| Question | Heidrick & Struggles | JM Search | Ahead |
|---|---|---|---|
| What are the best executive search firms?175 responses | 100.0% | 24.0% | Heidrick & Struggles |
| Which firms specialise in the role we are hiring for?175 responses | 82.3% | 19.4% | Heidrick & Struggles |
| Which search firms know our industry?175 responses | 81.1% | 19.4% | Heidrick & Struggles |
| Our executive search is not working. Who can take over?175 responses | 42.9% | 7.4% | Heidrick & Struggles |
How to read this
Share is the percentage of sampled ChatGPT responses to a question that named the firm at all — a measure of visibility, not of the work. A capable firm little has been written about will score low, which is a fact about how often it gets named and not a verdict on whether to hire it.
"Too close to call" is a result, not a gap in the data. Firms are grouped into tiers holding every firm the sample cannot statistically separate from that tier's leader, so two firms in one tier are reported as level however their percentages happen to fall. On 0 of these 4 questions that is what the measurement supports, and saying otherwise would be inventing precision.
Nothing here is our judgement of who is good. It is a count of who gets named. Both firms are measured over the same questions and the same 700 responses, so neither is being scored on a sample the other did not face.
The full picture on each
- Everything measured about Heidrick & StrugglesConducts CEO, C-suite, and board searches for large companies and PE-backed organizations.
- Everything measured about JM SearchConducts CEO, CFO, COO searches for private-equity-backed and middle-market companies.