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An executive assistant recruiter, headhunter, or placement agency typically charges a contingency fee of 15% to 25% of the hire’s first-year base salary, paid only when you hire, with a 60-to-90-day replacement guarantee. On the Bureau of Labor Statistics median executive assistant salary of $76,590 (May 2025), that is $11,500 to $19,100; in San Francisco, where the metro median is $105,190, it is $15,800 to $26,300. Specialist firms quote three to four weeks from briefing to an accepted offer, against a median of 39 days for non-executive roles across all employers (SHRM, 2026). Temporary and temp-to-hire placements are billed instead as a markup of roughly 25% to 60% over the assistant’s hourly pay. Retained searches, rare for this role, run 30% to 35%. Below: how the fees work, what 15 specialist and general firms publish, the full cost of the hire once the fee is paid, and when a recruiter is the wrong tool.
How much do executive assistant recruiters charge?
Almost no executive assistant recruiting firm publishes its fee. Of the 15 firms checked for this page, only C-Suite Assistants states its model in public (“a percentage of the candidate’s first-year base salary,” contingency), and none states the percentage. The benchmarks come from industry surveys and recruiting-platform guides.
| Fee type | Typical range | What it means | Source, checked September 7, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contingency, direct hire | 15% to 25% of first-year base salary; paid only on hire | The standard model for executive assistant searches; several firms may work the same role | Paraform (April 2026); Dover (January 2026); Recruiters LineUp (2024) |
| Contingency, senior or exclusive roles | 20% to 30% | Chief of staff, executive assistant to a public-company CEO, family-office roles | Dover; Recruiters LineUp (2024) |
| Retained search | 30% to 35% of compensation, paid in installments | Exclusive engagement; used by a minority of specialist firms (The Duncan Group states it “operates globally, on a retained basis”) | Paraform |
| Temporary and temp-to-hire | Markup of 25% to 60% over the hourly pay rate (HumanCloud puts clerical roles at 25% to 40%); conversion fee if you hire | You pay the agency an hourly bill rate; the assistant is the agency’s employee | Instawork (May 2026); HumanCloud (March 2026) |
| Replacement guarantee | 60 to 90 days is standard; 90 days is the most common | Free replacement search if the hire leaves or is let go within the window; usually not a refund | Dover; Paraform; C-Suite Assistants; Society Staffing |
| Historical average | 21.5% average fee, $20,283 average fee per placement | Top Echelon network data, 2018; still the most-cited single figure | Top Echelon |
What that means in dollars depends on the salary, and the salary depends on the city. The BLS reports the following medians for executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants (May 2025 wage data, via O*NET):
| Market | Median salary | 20% contingency fee | 25% contingency fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $76,590 | $15,300 | $19,100 |
| New York metro | $83,840 | $16,800 | $21,000 |
| San Francisco metro | $105,190 | $21,000 | $26,300 |
| Los Angeles metro | $82,850 | $16,600 | $20,700 |
| Chicago metro | $77,770 | $15,600 | $19,400 |
| Miami metro | $73,180 | $14,600 | $18,300 |
Before you sign a fee agreement, read two definitions. First, the percentage applies to base salary in most contingency agreements but to total first-year compensation in some, which for a role with a bonus or sign-on can add several thousand dollars to the fee; read the definition. Second, the guarantee is a replacement search, not money back. If the replacement also fails, most agreements offer nothing further, so the guarantee is worth exactly as much as the firm’s bench.
How long does it take to hire an executive assistant through a recruiter?
Faster than doing it yourself, but not fast. Specialist firms that publish timelines say three to four weeks: C-Suite Assistants states a typical placement timeline of three to four weeks “from initial consultation to offer acceptance,” with shortlists “often presented within one to two weeks” and urgent searches done “in as little as 10 days.” Tiger Recruitment says “we aim to fill permanent EA roles within three weeks of briefing.” Add the candidate’s notice period, usually two weeks and often four for a senior assistant, and the realistic distance from briefing to first day is five to eight weeks.
For temporary and contract roles, the large staffing firms are much faster because they place from a bench: Robert Half says it can provide administrative talent “often in as little as 48 hours,” and Beacon Hill claims a same-day average time to fill for administrative roles. That speed is for a temp who is the agency’s employee on an hourly bill rate, not for a direct hire.
The employer-side benchmark is SHRM’s 2026 Recruiting Executives Benchmarking report (data from more than 4,600 organizations, published June 24, 2026), which puts the median time to fill non-executive positions at 39 calendar days. Recruiters earn their fee partly by beating that number and partly by not consuming your team’s time to do it: SHRM’s 2025 report found screening and interviewing alone average eight to nine days each.
Which firms specialize in executive assistant recruiting?
The firms below are listed alphabetically, not ranked. Everything in the table is what the firm states on its own website as of September 7, 2026; “not stated” means the firm’s public pages do not say. Fees are omitted because none of these firms publishes a percentage.
| Firm | Focus, as stated | Markets | Models offered | Timeline stated | Guarantee stated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beacon Hill (Beacon Hill Associates) | “From high-performing executive assistants to entry-level administrative support” | 17 US locations in 12 states, Boston HQ | Temporary, contract-to-hire, direct hire | “Same Day average time-to-fill for administrative roles” | Not stated |
| Bloom Talent | “helps high growth companies hire Executive Assistants and other admin talent”; also chief of staff and “first non-technical hire” | San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle | Direct hire | Not stated | Not stated |
| C-Suite Assistants | “specialist executive assistant recruitment agency, focused on placing elite Executive Assistants”; on-site, hybrid, and fully remote | Nationwide; 19 named cities including New York, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles | Direct hire, contingency; interim or fractional “in certain situations” | Three to four weeks “from initial consultation to offer acceptance”; urgent “as little as 10 days” | “90-day replacement guarantee” for performance-related departures |
| Career Group Companies | “high-touch Executive Assistant recruitment within administrative and corporate services, as well as for UHNW Individuals and private family offices”; women-owned, 40-plus years | Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Dallas, Greenwich, Canada, Mexico | Direct hire, temp-to-hire, temporary | Not stated | Not stated |
| Glocap | Executive assistant and administrative roles for finance and professional services; recent listings at $120,000 to $180,000 | New York | Permanent and temporary | Not stated | Not stated |
| The Grapevine Agency | “Executive & Personal Assistants” alongside household staff; “Discreet High Touch Placement” | Nationwide | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Kelly Services | Executive assistants, office managers, legal secretaries within its administrative and office division; “437k candidates in our administrative & office talent pool” | Nationwide | Temporary, direct hire | Not stated | Not stated |
| LHH | Temporary and permanent recruitment across practice areas; no executive assistant practice named on its recruitment pages | 60-plus countries | Temporary, permanent | Not stated | Not stated |
| Pocketbook Agency | “placing support level and administrative roles for domestic and corporate clients”; corporate roles include chief of staff, executive assistant, office manager | US and Canada | Not stated; fee structure by request | Not stated | “an excellent placement guarantee” (length not stated); claims a 96% retention rate |
| Robert Half | Administrative and customer support practice, placing “tens of thousands of administrative professionals” a year | 300-plus locations worldwide | Contract, contract-to-hire, permanent | Contract talent “often in as little as 48 hours” | Not stated |
| Society Staffing | “discrete placement of the world’s most accomplished talent within the most sophisticated family offices and private estates”; roles not enumerated publicly | New York | Not stated | Not stated | “three-month placement guarantee” |
| Starboard Staffing (formerly Hire Society) | Private household and estate staff, including executive personal assistants; “boutique, private, referral-based” | New York, the Hamptons, Palm Beach, Los Angeles | Direct hire | Not stated | Not stated |
| Steele Recruiting | “Chiefs of Staff, Executive Assistants to CEOs, Presidents, and C-Suite Executives, and Personal Assistants”; 20-plus years | Nationwide | Direct hire and contractor services | Not stated | “Backed by our guarantee” (terms not stated) |
| The Duncan Group | “recruitment and training of Chiefs of Staff and C-Suite staff”; describes itself as “the first retained search firm” for chiefs of staff | Global; New York base | Retained search | Not stated | Not stated |
| Tiger Recruitment | “placing outstanding PAs, EAs, and admin professionals”; also recruits virtual executive assistants globally | New York HQ; Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Houston, Ohio; London, Dubai, Zurich | Permanent, temporary, contract | “within three weeks of briefing” for permanent roles | Not stated |
A few observations that the table does not make on its own. The general staffing firms (Beacon Hill, Kelly, LHH, Robert Half) are the right call for a temp or a contract-to-hire trial, because they have a bench and can move in days. The boutiques (C-Suite Assistants, Career Group, Bloom, Tiger, Steele) are the right call for a permanent senior executive assistant, because they hold the candidates who are not on job boards. The household and family-office firms (Society, Starboard, Grapevine, Pocketbook, part of Career Group) are a distinct market with a distinct candidate pool, and are usually a poor fit for a business executive assistant role.
Contingency, retained, or temp-to-hire: which should you use?
Contingency is the default for executive assistant roles and is right for most of them. You pay nothing unless you hire, you can brief two firms, and the fee is 15% to 25%. Its weakness is that a non-exclusive contingency recruiter works the roles most likely to close, which means a hard-to-fill brief (an executive assistant with investor-relations experience who will relocate, say) can quietly fall to the bottom of their list. Top Echelon’s guidance is that contingency fees are lower than retained “because the search process is normally shorter.”
Retained makes sense when the role is unusual and senior enough that you want one firm accountable for it, and when you are prepared to pay a third of compensation, in installments, whether or not the search succeeds on the first shortlist. In this category, that is chief of staff and executive-assistant-to-a-public-CEO territory, which is why The Duncan Group is the only firm on the list that describes itself as retained.
Temp-to-hire is the underused option. You pay an hourly bill rate at a markup for a defined trial period and then convert the assistant to your payroll, with a conversion fee that agencies typically reduce or waive the longer the trial runs. It costs more per hour than a direct hire’s salary, but it turns the decision into a paid trial, which is the single most reliable way to test an assistant. The same logic drives the paid work sample in how to vet an executive assistant; temp-to-hire is that test at full scale.
What does the whole hire cost once the fee is paid?
The recruiter’s fee is the smallest of the large numbers. The full first-year cost of a recruited, in-house executive assistant at the national median looks like this:
| Line | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Base salary, US median | $76,590 | BLS, May 2025 |
| Employer-paid benefits, about 43% on top of wages | About $33,000 | BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, March 2026 (benefits are 30.1% of total compensation for private-industry workers) |
| Contingency fee at 20% | $15,300 | Industry benchmarks above |
| Internal cost per hire (interviewing time, tools, onboarding) | $5,475 average for non-executive roles | SHRM 2025 benchmarking |
| Equipment and software | $2,000 to $5,000 | Our estimate |
| First-year total | About $132,000 to $135,000 | Arithmetic on the lines above |
In San Francisco, the same table starts at $105,190 and ends near $180,000. And the total carries a risk the table cannot show: if the hire leaves, Gallup’s estimate of replacement cost is “one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary,” and the recruiter’s guarantee covers only the first 60 to 90 days.
The executive assistant cost page walks through the in-house math and the alternatives in more detail; in-house vs outsourced talent cost runs the comparison for operations roles generally.
How do you get the most out of an executive assistant recruiter?
What separates a good recruiter engagement from an expensive one:
- Write the scope before the call. A recruiter briefed on “an executive assistant for our CEO” will send you executive assistants. A recruiter briefed on “owns calendar and inbox for two executives, runs board-meeting logistics quarterly, manages a $200,000 travel budget, needs Salesforce and Notion” will send you three people who can do that and skip the twenty who cannot. The executive assistant job description template is a starting point.
- Set the salary band from data, not from the recruiter. The recruiter’s fee is a percentage of salary, so their incentive on salary is not yours. Use the BLS metro medians above, or the percentiles: nationally, the 25th percentile is $61,390 and the 75th is $94,390.
- Negotiate the definition and the guarantee before the shortlist. Base salary versus total compensation, the guarantee length, and whether the guarantee covers a resignation as well as a termination are all negotiable before you have seen a candidate and not afterward.
- Do not skip your own test. A recruiter screens for fit and history. A 60-to-90-minute paid work sample (a real inbox triage, a calendar conflict, a draft to a client) tells you what the résumé cannot, and no reputable firm objects to it. The how to vet an executive assistant checklist has the rubric.
- Brief no more than two firms on a contingency search. Three or more firms chasing the same candidates in a small market signals a role that cannot close, and candidates notice.
When is a recruiter the wrong tool?
A recruiter is the right tool when the role must be in-house, in a specific city, on your payroll, and the budget is $130,000 or more for year one. That describes a real share of executive assistant hires, particularly for public-company executives and for roles with a heavy in-person component.
It is the wrong tool in three common situations. If the budget cannot absorb $130,000 in year one, the fee is the least of the problem. If the executive needs help in weeks rather than a quarter, five to eight weeks to a first day and then a ramp is too slow. And a leader who has never had an assistant and does not know how they will use one should not commit to a permanent hire and a five-figure fee before finding out.
In those cases the comparison is not between recruiters; it is between models. A managed remote executive assistant service employs the assistant, does the sourcing and vetting itself, and charges a flat monthly fee instead of a placement fee. Oceans Talent places a dedicated, full-time executive operator starting at around $3,000 a month, matched in about two weeks, with a free rematch if the first match is not right. There is no placement fee and no salary to negotiate, and 600+ companies have hired this way. The executive assistant staffing agency page compares the three models side by side, and how to hire a remote executive assistant is the process from scope to first 30 days.
If you are weighing a recruited hire against a managed placement, book a call and we will price the managed option against your actual scope so the comparison is like for like.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to use an executive assistant recruiter?
15% to 25% of the hire’s first-year base salary on a contingency basis, paid only if you hire; Top Echelon’s network average is 21.5%. On the BLS median executive assistant salary of $76,590 that is $11,500 to $19,100; in San Francisco, $15,800 to $26,300. Retained searches run 30% to 35%, and temporary placements are billed hourly at a 25% to 60% markup. None of the 15 firms reviewed publishes its percentage.
How fast can a recruiter fill an executive assistant role?
Three to four weeks to an accepted offer at specialist firms that publish timelines (C-Suite Assistants quotes three to four weeks, Tiger Recruitment aims for three), then the candidate’s notice period, so five to eight weeks to a first day. SHRM’s 2026 median for non-executive roles across all employers is 39 days. Temporary placements from large staffing firms can start within days.
What is the difference between an executive assistant recruiter and a staffing agency?
A recruiter (or headhunter) finds a candidate you hire onto your own payroll and charges a one-time fee, usually a percentage of salary. A staffing agency employs the assistant and bills you an hourly or monthly rate, either for a temporary period or on an ongoing basis. Many firms do both: Robert Half, Beacon Hill, and Career Group offer temporary, temp-to-hire, and direct-hire placements, and Kelly offers temporary and direct hire. A managed remote executive assistant service such as Oceans Talent is a third model: the provider employs and manages the assistant long term for a flat monthly fee, with no placement fee.
Do executive assistant recruiters offer a guarantee?
Most do, for 60 to 90 days, with 90 days the most common. The guarantee is almost always a free replacement search rather than a refund, and it typically covers performance-related departures within the window. C-Suite Assistants states a 90-day replacement guarantee and Society Staffing a three-month one; most other firms either describe a guarantee without stating its length or do not mention one publicly. Ask for the terms in writing, including whether a resignation is covered.
Are executive assistant headhunters worth it?
For a permanent, senior, in-house executive assistant, usually yes: the fee of $15,000 to $20,000 buys access to candidates who are not applying to job posts, a screened shortlist in one to two weeks, and a replacement guarantee. Against an internal cost per hire that SHRM puts at $5,475 on average, plus the weeks of executive time an unassisted search consumes, the fee is defensible. It is not worth it when the year-one budget cannot reach $130,000, when the executive needs help within weeks, or when the leader is not yet sure how they will use an assistant; a managed remote placement fits those cases better.
What salary should I expect to pay an executive assistant hired through a recruiter?
Start from the BLS median for executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants: $76,590 nationally (May 2025), $83,840 in the New York metro, $105,190 in San Francisco, $82,850 in Los Angeles, $77,770 in Chicago, $73,180 in Miami. The national 25th and 75th percentiles are $61,390 and $94,390. Robert Half’s 2026 salary guide brackets the role at $58,250 to $86,750. Executive assistants to public-company CEOs and in finance can run higher; Glocap’s current New York listings show $120,000 to $180,000.
What is the alternative to using an executive assistant recruiter?
Three alternatives, depending on the constraint. If the constraint is time, temp-to-hire through a staffing firm gets someone in the seat in days and converts to a permanent hire after a trial. If the constraint is budget or location, a managed remote executive assistant service places a dedicated, full-time assistant for a flat fee; Oceans Talent starts at around $3,000 a month with no placement fee, matching in about two weeks, and a free rematch. If the constraint is scope, a freelance marketplace works for bounded, part-time tasks but leaves all screening and management with you; the Upwork alternatives page covers that trade-off.
Sources and Methodology
Firm information. Every statement about a firm was read from its own website on September 7, 2026: Beacon Hill Associates; Bloom Talent and its clients page; C-Suite Assistants, its hiring page, and its nationwide recruiting page; Career Group Companies; Glocap; The Grapevine Agency; Kelly Services; LHH; Pocketbook Agency and its FAQ; Robert Half administrative staffing and Robert Half executive assistant salary; Society Staffing; Starboard Staffing; Steele Recruiting; The Duncan Group; Tiger Recruitment and its executive assistant recruitment page. Firms are listed alphabetically; inclusion is not an endorsement, and “not stated” means the firm’s public pages do not state the item, not that the firm does not offer it.
Fee and timeline benchmarks. Paraform, contingency recruiting guide (April 2026); Dover, recruitment fee agreements (January 2026); Recruiters LineUp; Top Echelon, average fees and fee structures; Instawork, staffing agency fees (May 2026); HumanCloud, 2026 markup rates. SHRM 2026 Recruiting Executives Benchmarking (39-day median time to fill); SHRM 2025 benchmarking press release ($5,475 average non-executive cost per hire; eight to nine days each for screening and interviewing).
Government and research sources. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants (43-6011), May 2025, national and metro percentiles via O*NET OnLine; BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, March 2026 (released June 12, 2026; the next release is scheduled for September 9, 2026); Gallup on replacement cost.
Our own estimates, labeled. Fee dollar amounts are the stated percentages applied to the BLS medians. The 43% benefits loading is 30.1 divided by 69.9. The first-year totals, the $2,000 to $5,000 equipment line, and the five-to-eight-week door-to-desk estimate are arithmetic or judgment on the sourced inputs and are marked as such.
First-party data. Oceans Talent figures (pricing starting at around $3,000 a month, matching in about two weeks, free rematch, 600+ companies) are stated at why us, how we hire and hire executive assistants.
Oceans Talent places vetted, dedicated, full-time remote executive assistants starting at around $3,000 a month, with no placement fee. See how placements are structured, or book a call to compare a managed placement against a recruited hire for your role.
