How to Choose a Firm for an Estate Management Search

Running a great estate is executive work. Finding the person to do it calls for an executive search, not a staffing list.

Hiring someone to run your estate, or your several estates, is closer to recruiting a chief operating officer than to filling a household role, and the firm you engage should treat it that way. An estate manager holds your properties, your staff, your budgets, your vendors, and a great deal of your private life in their hands. The search to find that person should be commensurate, and many staffing agencies are simply not built for it.

The first thing to look for is whether a firm genuinely conducts a search or merely forwards a list. Estate management is too specific, and the right candidates too rare, to be matched from whoever happens to be available. A serious firm begins with the actual scope of your situation, the number and type of properties, the size of the staff to be led, the systems to be run, the degree of discretion required, and then recruits to that brief, going to find the right executive if they are not already known. This is executive search applied to the private household, and it is the only approach that reliably surfaces the caliber of person these roles demand.

Depth of vetting matters even more at this level than in other roles, because an estate manager's access is so complete. The firm should be able to describe a rigorous, multi-layered screening, criminal records across jurisdictions, verified employment and references, and confirmation of the management track record a candidate claims, and should treat confidentiality as fundamental.

Look, too, for a firm that understands how these roles are compensated and structured. Senior estate managers are executives, often compensated well into six figures with benefits that may include housing, retirement contributions, and bonuses. A firm that does not operate at that level, or that treats an estate manager like an hourly hire, will not have access to the right people or the judgment to structure the placement well.

And look for a guarantee that reflects the stakes. A firm confident in its ability to place an estate manager well will stand behind that placement substantially; ours carries a full-year guarantee on full-time placements.

We have conducted executive searches for private households since 1999, placing estate and household managers who run significant operations across one or many properties. For a search this consequential, choose a firm that recruits rather than lists, vets to the depth the access demands, understands executive compensation, and guarantees its work. That is the standard the role requires. This is the care Nannies + more…® is built to provide.