For Firms Hiring · No Fee to Start
Private Wealth Recruiters
for Advisory Firms and Family Offices.
For firms serving high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients, including the private wealth groups inside banks and trust companies. This page is for firms hiring. If you are an advisor thinking about a move, start here instead.
The Short Answer
What Private Wealth Recruiters Do for a Hiring Firm
Private wealth recruiters find, screen and introduce the people a firm hires to serve high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients: advisors and relationship leads, planners, client service staff and the leaders who run the business. At The Well the hiring firm pays: nothing to start, then 25% of the hire's first-year OTE when they accept.
Private wealth recruiting is the same craft as any advisor search, with less room for error. The clients are fewer and larger, many have worked with the same advisor for years, and they notice when the team around them changes. The person you hire has to be trusted with the relationship from the first meeting, and the search has to stay quiet until you are ready for it not to.
We work for the hiring firm. We place salaried employees who will build their careers inside your private wealth business, and we do not do M&A advisory, book-of-business transfers or wirehouse breakaway deals. We have recruited only for wealth management firms since November 2023 and have served 155+ of them. The record behind that work is published in The RIA Talent Report: 1,441 recorded screening and video cover-letter calls and a talent graph of 6,445 people across 49 states, as of the first half of 2026.
For every seat we fill across a firm, see our wealth management recruiters page. For the advisor seat on its own, see our financial advisor recruiters page, and if your private wealth business is an independent RIA, our RIA recruiters page covers the whole firm.
Private Wealth Roles
The Seats in a Private Wealth Recruiting Search
A private wealth team is small, and every seat on it touches the client. These are the seats firms bring us, what they usually ask for, and what decides the hire, with a search from our case studies where we have one.
| Seat | What firms ask for | What actually decides the hire | From our searches |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead advisor or relationship lead | Years with high-net-worth clients, the right licenses, sometimes a book | Whether a family will trust them with the whole relationship, and whether their references describe the same advisor they do | Lead advisor for an $800M firm entering Nashville (February 2026); senior wealth advisor in Dallas (April 2026) |
| Business development advisor | A network and a record of bringing in new relationships | Whether they have built relationships from scratch, not only managed inherited assets | Business development advisor for a $10B national RIA, focused on institutional and high-net-worth relationships (January 2026) |
| Service advisor or associate | Client service experience and licensing | How they run a relationship they did not originate, and whether clients will call them when the lead advisor is away | See our financial advisor recruiters page |
| Planner or paraplanner | Planning software and the CFP coursework | Technical depth on complex plans, and how cleanly they hand work to an advisor | Senior Financial Planning Associate for a $25B platform (March 2026); paraplanner in Suwanee, Georgia |
| Client service and operations | Custodian and CRM experience | Accuracy and discretion with clients who expect a fast, exact answer | Client experience hire for a $3B remote-first RIA, closed in twenty days |
| Leadership | A senior title and a record at scale | Whether they have run the function at your size, and whether your advisors will follow them | COO placements in Las Vegas (August 2025), Sacramento (June 2026) and Phoenix (July 2026); SVP Finance / Controller for a $4B RIA (February 2026) |
Leadership seats can run as Retained Executive Search, covered under fees below, and our RIA leadership hiring benchmark has the numbers. Our financial advisor job description guide covers how to write any of these seats before the search starts.
What Changes
How Private Wealth Staffing Differs From Other Advisor Hiring
Three things make a private wealth search harder than an ordinary advisor search, and each one changes how it has to run.
- Confidentiality, on both sides. A private wealth seat can be open before your own team knows it: a lead advisor planning a retirement, a replacement nobody has been told about, a new office not yet announced. Strong candidates are just as careful, because their clients may hear about a move before their employer does. Our rule runs both ways. A candidate's name is shared only with their permission, and only with a firm that has signed a search agreement with us. Our guide to vetting a recruiter's confidentiality practices lists what to ask any firm.
- Client-relationship continuity. In private wealth the relationship is the asset. A hire who joins with clients, or a replacement who inherits them, has to protect that relationship before anything else. Before an offer, check what the candidate's non-solicit and non-compete allow and whether both firms are in the Protocol for Broker Recruiting, and plan the client conversation around what the agreements permit. We place salaried employees; we do not broker the book.
- A smaller candidate pool. Fewer people have done this work, and most of them are not looking. In the first half of 2026, 78% of the advisors we placed were not looking when we first reached them. That is why we start in The Vault, our network of candidates who have already completed a full screening interview with us, before we post anything. It is also why we widen the geography before we lower the bar: when a $25B platform opened one planning seat across four states, the hire came from outside all four. See our passive advisor candidates benchmark.
Our Process
How Our Private Wealth
Recruiting Process Runs
One specialist owns your search from brief to start date, with the full team searching behind them. Here is what happens, and when.
Deep Discovery
A one to two hour kickoff with your leadership: the clients you serve, how the team is built, comp philosophy, and what the seat has to protect. The search brief comes out of this call.
Vault and Brain Sourcing
Matching Vault candidates, already screened by us, are shortlisted within 24 hours of kickoff. Outreach to passive candidates found by The Brain starts within 48 hours.
Video-First Screening
Every candidate is screened on video before your calendar is touched. Most searches produce 15 to 30 screened candidates.
Confidential Introductions
Each introduction comes with a written brief, and only with the candidate's permission. Across a full quarter of placements, the median time from kickoff to introducing the candidate who was ultimately hired was 16 days.
Offer Through Start Date
Counter-offer prep before your hire resigns, resignation coaching, and contact through the start date.
An Honest Timeline
Our median search runs under eight weeks from kickoff to accepted offer, and across a full quarter of placements it was 44.5 days. Senior seats, tight geographies and pay below the market take longer, and we tell you which apply before you sign.
A median hides a spread. A lead advisor for a retiree-heavy Orlando market took 116 days, because the firm would rather wait than hire someone who would need to unlearn an accumulation mindset. A four-state planner search ran seven months. Our benchmark on how long it takes to hire a financial advisor goes further.
Published Fees
What Private Wealth Recruiting Costs
Most searches start as Direct Hire Search, our most common model. There is no fee to start. The placement fee is 25% of first-year OTE, the on-target earnings written into the candidate's offer, due in full when they accept. Role minimums apply, and we walk you through them on the call.
Direct Hire Search
For firms hiring one to three people a year
Nothing to start. 25% of first-year OTE when your hire accepts. For an advisor role at $180,000 OTE, the placement fee is $45,000.
ScaleWell
For firms making four or more hires a year
One ongoing partnership instead of a new search each time, with pricing built around your hiring roadmap and locked for the contract year. See ScaleWell.
Retained Executive Search
For C-suite and senior roles
Fully retained, with the fee built to the scope of the search. The full market is mapped before the first candidate is contacted, and a senior partner oversees the search.
Firms that hire with us regularly, or move quickly once they meet a candidate, get better economics, set out on the call. Our fees are on our pricing page, and the full cost of hiring a financial advisor, from the fee to the empty seat, is in our cost guide.
Family Offices and UHNW
Family Office Recruiting and UHNW Hiring
A single-family office serves one family, and a multi-family office serves a small number of them. Each hire works closely with the family and with its other advisors, such as attorneys, accountants and trustees. Discretion is part of the job description, not a courtesy.
That changes the search in three ways. The brief has to say what the family is like to work with, not only what the role does. The candidate pool is smaller again, because few people have served ultra-high-net-worth families from inside an office. And the search has to stay quiet, which is why a candidate's name reaches you only with their permission and only after you have signed a search agreement with us.
We search for a family office the way we search for any private wealth team, across the same three families of seats: advisors and planners, client service and operations, and leadership. Leadership seats for an office, such as a chief executive, chief operating or chief investment officer, run as Retained Executive Search, with the market mapped before the first call. Firms we have recruited for include New City Family Office and Thoreson Steffes Trust Company.
What we do not do, for a family office or anyone else: M&A advisory, book-of-business transfers or breakaway deals. We place salaried employees who will build their careers inside the office.
Choosing a Recruiter
How to Compare Private Wealth Recruiting Firms
Whoever you are weighing, ask the same questions before you spend interview time. Here are ours, with our answers.
- Who pays you, and what do we owe before a hire? The hiring firm pays, and a Direct Hire Search costs nothing to start.
- Can we see your fees before the first call? Ours are published on our pricing page.
- What share of your searches are in wealth management? All of them, since 2023.
- How do you keep a search confidential? A candidate's name is shared only with their permission, and only with a firm that has signed a search agreement.
- What will we see before the first interview? A video profile on every candidate.
- Who stays with the candidate after the offer? We do, with counter-offer prep through the start date.
- Which searches do you turn down? M&A, book transfers and breakaway deals, and any search we do not believe we can fill.
For the recruiting models and firms side by side, see RIA recruiters compared and our guide on how to choose a recruiter.
Client Results
Private Wealth Recruiting Results From Our Case Studies
Business Development Advisor
The firm's first dedicated business development hire, there to identify, pursue and close institutional and high-net-worth relationships. The hire had built relationships from scratch, not only managed inherited assets. Placed January 2026.
SVP Finance / Controller
The firm's first true finance executive. Sixteen candidates presented, and the search closed in under six weeks. The hire was not looking. The Vault surfaced them. Placed February 2026.
Lead Financial Advisor
A retiree-concentrated market, where the advisor had to plan for decumulation, not accumulation. The firm chose to wait for the right fit, and the search closed in 116 days. Placed June 2026.
The person behind the search: our founder, Steve Perry, joined New York Life as an advisor in 2006, spent 17 years there, built an advisor team from scratch to 40 in five years and led a 125-person firm as Managing Partner. He wrote The Capacity Model (2021), WealthManagement.com quoted him in August 2026 on our RIA Talent Report, and he has talked about building advisory teams on The Advisors Edge Podcast and the Top Advisor Podcast. Our partnerships team came from Charles Schwab Advisor Services, Mercer Advisors, The Impact Partnership, Allianz Life and Prudential, and every recruiter has a bio you can read. The full story is on our About page.
Firms we have recruited for include Merit Financial Advisors, SEIA, Mission Wealth, Focus Financial, Coldstream Wealth Management, Mutual Advisors, Avior Wealth Management, Sowell Management, Oak Harvest Financial Group, Prosperity Capital Advisors, Lloyd Advisory Group, Thoreson Steffes Trust Company, New City Family Office, BOSS Retirement Solutions, Wood Financial Group and Highland Rim Wealth Management. Rated on 175 Google reviews, as of October 2026.
Straight Answers
Private Wealth Recruiting and Staffing FAQ
What does a private wealth recruiter do?
Finds, screens and introduces the people a firm hires to serve high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients, then manages the offer, the counter-offer and the resignation through the start date. At The Well the hiring firm pays, and there is no fee to start a search.
Which private wealth staffing should I use for hiring executives?
For a C-suite seat, a retained executive search is usually the right model: the full market mapped before anyone is contacted, a senior partner on the search, and a fee built to its scope. Ask any firm you are weighing who works the search and how it stays confidential. At The Well, leadership seats run as Retained Executive Search, and recent COO placements include seats in Las Vegas, Sacramento and Phoenix. Not every senior seat needs a retained search, and our guide to when a leadership hire needs executive search sets out where the line sits.
Are private wealth staffing platforms enough?
A staffing platform or job board posts your seat and sorts the people who apply. That works when the right candidate is looking. In private wealth they usually are not: 78% of the advisors we placed in the first half of 2026 were not looking when we first reached them. A recruiter's job is to reach those people, screen them and introduce only the ones worth your time. We are not a job board or a general staffing agency.
What should we look for in private wealth staffing services?
A recruiter that works only in wealth management, publishes its fees, tells you what you owe before a hire, shares a candidate's name only with their permission, and stays with your hire through the start date. We do not rank other firms on this page. Our RIA recruiters compared page sets out the options side by side, and the questions above work on anyone, including us.
How much does private wealth recruiting cost?
At The Well there is no fee to start a Direct Hire Search. The placement fee is 25% of first-year OTE, due when your hire accepts. For an advisor role at $180,000 OTE that is $45,000. Role minimums apply. Firms that hire with us regularly, or move quickly once they meet a candidate, get better economics, set out on the call, and firms making four or more hires a year can move to ScaleWell.
How long does a private wealth search take?
Our median search runs under eight weeks from kickoff to accepted offer, and across a full quarter of placements it was 44.5 days. Senior seats, tight geographies and pay below the market take longer, and we tell you which of those apply before you sign.
How do you keep a private wealth search confidential?
A candidate's name is shared only with their permission, and only with a firm that has signed a search agreement with us. Every candidate is screened on video before your calendar is touched, so your team meets only the few people worth meeting.
How should a family office choose a recruiter for UHNW hiring?
Judge the fit, not a ranking. A family office needs a recruiter that works only in wealth management, can run a search quietly, and maps the market for a leadership seat instead of posting it. We search for a family office the way we search for any private wealth team, and leadership seats run as Retained Executive Search.
Do you recruit advisors who bring clients?
Yes, as salaried employees of your firm. We do not broker book-of-business transfers or breakaway deals. Before an offer, check what the advisor's non-solicit and non-compete allow and whether both firms are in the Protocol for Broker Recruiting, and plan the client conversation around what the agreements permit.
I am an advisor. Can you help me find a firm?
Yes, on our candidate page. The firms pay our fee, so it costs you nothing, and your name is shared only with your permission and only with a firm that has signed a search agreement with us.
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