Partner-grade executive search, in an afternoon.
Zerlo runs the entire front end of a retained search in a fraction of the time it used to take. Intake to strategy documents to a sourced, verified candidate longlist. Work that used to take weeks, delivered in a single working session.
30-minute walkthrough with a real human. No credit card.
Completing intake...
Preparing pipeline
Every candidate is real. Every job title is verified. Every URL works.
Zerlo validates every candidate profile against multiple live public data sources before delivery. Names are real. Companies are current. Job titles match the public record. Tenure dates match public announcements. When data cannot be verified, the system flags it explicitly. The Partner can trust the longlist on first read.
The standards a Partner would apply, enforced on every output.
Cited or it does not ship.
Every numeric claim, every named company, every benchmark candidate carries a traceable source link. "Data Unavailable" is allowed. Fabricated URLs are not.
Audience boundary is non-negotiable.
Internal language never reaches the client document. The system runs a pre-flight check on every output to confirm Do-Not-Contact lists, Boolean strings, and slate weighting stay where they belong.
No recruiter slang. No em dashes. No exceptions.
Every PosSpec is run through a tone and formatting validator before it ships. Arial 11, US Letter, properly footered, headings nested correctly so Word's navigation pane works the way your sponsor expects.
Every senior search starts the same way. A blank page, a blinking cursor, and a sponsor expecting a real document by Friday.
You already know what a great search strategy looks like. You also know what it costs to produce one: an associate buried in Crunchbase tabs for three days, a half-finished market map nobody trusts, a comp band built from a Glassdoor screenshot, and a PosSpec that reads like a job description instead of a strategic artifact.
The work is rigorous. The output should be too. The bottleneck is everything in between.
The Associate problem.
A loaded Research Associate is expensive, bottlenecked, and learning on your dime. Senior research takes weeks per search. The talent you can hire is junior and often gone in eighteen months. The work is too important to do without and too repetitive to scale by hiring.
Research sprawl.
Twenty-five competitors, ten benchmark profiles, proxy filings, funding histories, compensation comps. Every search starts from zero.
Audience confusion.
Internal slate weighting, interview IP, and Do-Not-Contact lists leak into client docs. Or worse, the client doc reads like an internal memo and your sponsor stops reading at page two.
Inconsistent quality.
When the Partner writes it, it sings. When the associate writes it, it limps. Your firm's brand is whoever happened to be free that week.
One intake. Strategy documents. A verified longlist. Every artifact a Partner expects.
Zerlo runs the same research and synthesis workflow a senior search Partner runs in their head, then ships the documents and the longlist that come out the other side. The entire front end of a retained search, in a fraction of the time.
The Research Associate, in software form
The whole front end of a retained search, delivered in hours rather than weeks. Zerlo does not just write the strategy documents. It builds the longlist: a Partner-quality set of candidates against your persona and your market map, sourced from verified public data, validated against multiple sources, and structured so a Partner can work through it on first read.
- A Partner-quality candidate longlist, each profile with current role, tenure, company, and source citations
- Multi-source verification: every candidate fact cross-checked across profile data, company sites, press releases, and public filings
- Anti-hallucination scoring: confidence rating on every fact, Data Unavailable when verification fails, never invented information
- Structured output a search associate or Partner can edit, refine, and act on the same day
| Candidate | Current Role | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| J. Martinez | CFO, Series C SaaS | High |
| S. Chen | VP Finance, PE-backed | High |
| R. Thompson | CFO, Public Co | Medium |
| M. Patel | Controller, Growth | High |
The Partner Intake, Automated
A structured intake captures role, industry, geography, mandate trigger, client type, timeline, and comp posture. Zerlo extracts what it can from any JD or brief you upload, flags its assumptions, and asks only for what is missing. It feels like a kickoff call, not a form.
- Eight client-context overlays: PE-backed, VC-backed, public company, private company, family office, nonprofit, government, founder-led
- Or run neutral Partner voice with no overlay
- Works for any C-suite, VP, or Director-level search across any industry or geography
The Strategy Pipeline, Sourced and Cited
A multi-phase research pipeline runs in sequence: business context, role brief, candidate persona, market map, benchmark candidates, compensation framework, sourcing plan plus risk register plus timeline. Every claim is sourced. Every URL is real. Nothing is fabricated.
- A sourced market map with verified Company Website and Verification Source URLs in every row
- Calibrated benchmark candidate profiles with LinkedIn URLs or exact search queries
- Compensation framework built from proxy filings, published studies, and named comps
- Data Unavailable is honest. Fabricated URLs are a hard failure.
| Company | Stage | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Acme Corp | Series C | Verified |
| TechCo | Public | Verified |
| DataSoft | PE-backed | Verified |
| CloudBase | Series B | Verified |
Two Documents. One Boundary. Never Crossed.
Internal slate weighting, interview questions, Do-Not-Contact incumbents, Boolean strings, and candid risk language stay in the Internal Strategy Doc. Search Timeline, Search Logistics, Representative Archetypes, and softened market intelligence go in the client PosSpec. The boundary is enforced by the system, not by an associate hoping they remembered to delete the right paragraphs.
- Internal Strategy Doc: lane recommendation, persona, market map, benchmarks, sourcing plan, Boolean strings, risk register, Assessment Matrix with interview IP
- Client PosSpec: Opportunity framing, From-to Transformation, Critical Success Factors, Competency Framework, Representative Archetypes, Compensation Range
- Both delivered as polished, footer-stamped, Arial-11, US-Letter .docx files
From kickoff brief to a candidate longlist, in a single working session.
Intake
Drop in a JD, paste a brief, or just describe the role. Zerlo groups its questions intelligently and confirms its assumptions back to you in plain English.
Strategy pipeline
A multi-phase pipeline executes in sequence with live web research at every phase that needs it: business context, role brief, persona, market map, benchmarks, compensation framework, sourcing plan.
Research Associate
Zerlo builds a verified candidate longlist, sourced against your market map and persona, validated across multiple data sources, and confidence-scored on every fact.
Deliver
Two .docx files and a structured longlist. Send the Internal doc to your team. Send the PosSpec to your sponsor. Begin outreach on the longlist the same day.
Built for the people who run senior searches for a living.
In-house talent leaders at PE and VC firms.
You are running parallel C-suite searches across a portfolio. Zerlo gives you a Partner-quality strategy artifact and a verified longlist on every search so your sponsor reviews look like one firm, not twelve.
Boutique and mid-market retained search firms.
You compete on judgment, not headcount. Zerlo gives your associates a Partner-quality first draft and a sourced longlist so your Partners spend their hours with candidates and clients, not in Crunchbase.
Operating partners and portfolio talent leads.
When a portco needs a CFO yesterday and the sponsor wants the PosSpec by board day, Zerlo gets you there without burning a weekend.
Corporate executive talent functions.
You hire VPs and Directors continuously and your internal team is asked to produce retained-search-quality artifacts on a TA budget. Zerlo closes that gap.
The difference between a search you're proud of and a search you survive.
| Without Zerlo | With Zerlo |
|---|---|
Weeks to a first-draft PosSpec and longlist | A complete search front end in a single working session |
Associate-built longlists are slow and inconsistent | A Partner can build a longlist in an afternoon |
Market map built from one analyst's bookmark folder | A sourced market map, every row URL-verified |
Candidate profiles cross-checked manually if at all | Multi-source verification with confidence scoring on every fact |
Internal language leaking into client docs | Hard audience boundary enforced by the system |
Inconsistent quality across Partners and associates | Partner-grade output on every search |
This is what your client sees at the end of the day.
Two polished documents, delivered as standard .docx files.
Internal Strategy Doc
Slate weighting, full persona, market map with verification URLs, calibrated benchmark candidates, sourcing plan, Boolean strings, candid risk register, Assessment Matrix with interview questions.
Position Specification
Opportunity framing, From-to Transformation, Critical Success Factors, Competency Framework, Representative Archetypes, Compensation Range, Search Timeline and Logistics.
Questions we get on every demo.
Your next senior search can begin and finish in a single working session.
Thirty minutes with a real human. Bring a role you actually have open. Leave with a strategy doc, a PosSpec, and a sourced longlist.