TheShortlist Report

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Shortlist Report

Head to head

Spencer Stuart vs True

Named side by side in 4 executive search firms questions. Spencer Stuart came out ahead on 3; on 1 the sample cannot tell them apart.

The Shortlist Report ·

71.8%Spencer Stuart
38.2%True
3–0Questions led
1Too close to call

Over 4 executive search firms questions measured by The Shortlist Report over 220 AI responses, Spencer Stuart was named more often than True on 3 of them, True on 0, and the sample could not separate them on the remaining 1.

Question by question

QuestionSpencer StuartTrueAhead
What are the best executive search firms?55 responses100.0%85.5%Spencer Stuart
Which firms specialise in the role we are hiring for?55 responses85.5%23.6%Spencer Stuart
Who runs board and chief executive searches?55 responses83.6%18.2%Spencer Stuart
Which search firms work with venture-backed startups?55 responses18.2%25.5%Same tier — too close to call

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 1 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 220 responses, so neither is being scored on a sample the other did not face.

The full picture on each

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