HR leadership turns over more often than most organizations plan for. According to one analysis, the average tenure for a Chief Human Resources Officer sits at 4.7 years, and CHRO turnover runs at nine percent annually (higher than the C-suite average of seven percent).1
When an HR lead or talent acquisition contact moves on, the operational handoff tends to get attention, but specific vendor relationships are often forgotten until later. If your organization has active recruiting partnerships, a change in internal HR leadership may affect them.
This article is for the founders, COOs, and senior leaders who are watching that transition happen and want to make sure the recruiting infrastructure their team built doesn’t have to be rebuilt from scratch.
What Gets Lost in an Internal HR Transition
When an HR lead changes, the institutional knowledge of your vendor relationships walks out with them. The recruiting firm they worked with knows their contact is gone, but they may not know who to call next. Your new HR hire or interim lead may not know which external partners were performing well and which weren’t. The risk compounds further during CEO transitions: research shows that within 12 months of a CEO change, 52 percent of CHROs turn over, tripling the likelihood of an HR leadership change at exactly the moment an organization needs stability.2
In the gap between those two realities, recruiting relationships that were genuinely working can go dormant. When that happens, your business absorbs the cost in three specific ways:
- Lost context. A recruiting partner who worked closely with your previous HR lead understood your culture, your standards, and what has worked in past searches. That knowledge doesn’t automatically transfer to a new point of contact.
- Lost momentum. If a search was in progress or recently completed, the follow-through and relationship maintenance that would normally happen post-placement may have stalled during the transition.
- Lost time. Starting over with a new firm or re-onboarding an existing one can take weeks of discovery. This time cost wouldn’t have been necessary if a well-maintained relationship existed.
3 Ways to Protect Your Recruiting Relationships During a Leadership Transition
The good news is that a strong recruiting relationship can survive an internal HR transition when it is handled deliberately. These steps help make sure the partnership carries forward rather than quietly disappearing.
1. Document the relationship before the transition is complete.
Before your outgoing HR lead exits, have them brief whoever is taking over on the partnerships that matter, covering at minimum:
- Which firms have been used to fill previous roles?
- Which placements held?
- What did the working relationship look like?
- Who were the primary contacts?
A 30-minute handoff conversation can save months of rebuilding. It will also help maintain alignment with new professionals coming into the hiring team.
2. Evaluate what you have before starting over.
A new HR leader may want to evaluate fresh vendors. That is understandable, but it can mean walking away from relationships that were delivering real value.
Before replacing existing partners, ask your new hire to take the time to review placement history. They need to be aware of retention outcomes as well. A firm with a strong track record inside your organization is worth keeping.
Read more: 5 Signs Your Hiring Process Needs Work
3. Re-engage early rather than waiting for an open role.
The best time to reintroduce your new HR contact to an existing recruiting partner is before a search is active. A relationship-building conversation when there is no urgency sets a much better foundation than a first introduction made under the pressure of an open seat.
Read more: When to Engage a Recruiting Partner
The Cost of Letting a Good Recruiting Relationship Go
Recruiting relationships are built on context. The more a firm knows about your organization, the more effectively they can serve you. This includes your culture, your standards, and your history of what has worked.
Understanding that context takes time to build and is easy to lose. Treating it as an asset worth protecting during an internal transition is one of the simplest ways to protect your hiring capacity at exactly the moment it’s most at risk.
Don’t let a leadership change reset your recruiting progress.
North Bridge has navigated internal transitions with clients across the US and UK for over two decades, placing administrative and HR professionals through contract, contract-to-hire, and direct hire arrangements. When an internal contact changes, we work to maintain continuity on our end — keeping the institutional knowledge of your organization intact so the next search doesn’t have to start from zero. If your organization is going through a leadership transition and you want to make sure your recruiting partnerships carry through it, reach out today.
Reference
- Vinopal, Courtney. “CHROs Have the ‘Second-Hardest Job in the C-Suite’ and a Higher Turnover Rate Than Any Other Executive-Level Position, Expert Says.” Fortune, 31 Mar. 2025, fortune.com/2025/03/31/chro-turnover-tenure-spencer-stuart.
- Upchurch, Zac. “CHRO Trends 2025 Report.” Talent Strategy Group, 20 Aug. 2025, www.talentstrategygroup.com/chro-trends-2025.
