Independent school leadership search firms run head-of-school and senior administrator searches for schools.
As a candidate you use them differently from a job board: you register with a firm, get on its consultants' radar, and apply to the searches it runs.
At Carney Sandoe you pay nothing — its job-seeker FAQ says the schools that work with it are its clients and pay the fees.
Here is how the process works from your side of the table.
Which firms run head and senior leadership searches?
Two long-established firms show how this market works from the candidate's side: Carney, Sandoe & Associates and Educators' Collaborative.
Everything verified below comes from their own pages, so treat it as what these firms say about themselves.
The searches at issue are the top jobs — the head role itself, which our head of school career guide covers, and the senior roles around it.
Carney, Sandoe & Associates organizes its work into three groups: a Placement Group for teachers and administrators open to new roles through the hiring season, a Search Group that runs its retained leadership searches, and a Consulting Group.
The firm says it works with over 2,000 independent, private, boarding and charter schools in 48 states and 32 countries, and has almost 50 years of experience in education leadership search.
Educators' Collaborative says it has partnered with schools for more than 50 years, with partners who are all former school leaders.
It starts head searches with stakeholder input sessions that feed a Leadership Profile, and it says it stays engaged through the new head's first year.
Our research for this page surfaced other firm names — Resource Group 175, Spellman Johnson and Storbeck among them — but we did not verify those firms' practices, so read each firm's own site for its focus, its consultants and its current searches.
One firm older guides mention, Wickenden Associates, we could not confirm: its website did not load when we checked in October 2026.
Treat any firm list, including this one, as a starting point rather than a live directory.
How do you get on a search consultant's radar?
Search consultants work from the materials in your candidate file.
You can register with a firm before a specific search fits you, so your materials are ready when one opens.
The application mechanics are specific.
In the 2026 head-search profiles Carney Sandoe posted, candidates submitted a cover letter and a current résumé as separate PDFs.
Candidates who advanced could then be asked for five professional references — not contacted without the candidate's permission — plus writing samples written for that search.
References deserve early attention.
Educators' Collaborative says it contacts references earlier in the process than usual, to identify those with the greatest potential fit early.
Line up people who will answer the phone and speak to your recent work, and warn them a consultant may call before you have had a chance to flag it.
Fit is the other half.
Educators' Collaborative starts each head search with stakeholder input sessions that feed a Leadership Profile — a written brief of what the school wants — so write to that profile rather than a generic leadership pitch.
Read it closely, echo its language, and be concrete about mission, scale and the challenges you have led through.
If you are a division head weighing a headship in the next year or two, start the relationship now rather than in the season you want to move: our division head career guide covers that role and what it prepares you to run.
- Register with the firms whose searches match your next step, before one does
- Keep a current résumé and a tailored leadership cover letter on file — the searches we verified asked for both as separate PDFs
- Line up five professional references who will pick up the phone, and warn them a consultant may call early
- Read the search brief for each school — Carney Sandoe's position profiles or Educators' Collaborative's Leadership Profile — and write to it, not to a generic leadership script
- Keep writing samples current — the profiles we verified asked for samples written for the specific search
Do candidates pay search firms?
At Carney Sandoe, no. The firm answers the question directly in its job-seeker FAQ: its services are completely free for candidates, and the schools that work with it are its clients and pay any fees associated with using its services.
That is what retained means at Carney Sandoe: the school is the client, and you are a candidate in its process rather than a customer of it.
The brief the search runs on is the school's — the profile, the references, the fit.
What the process does cost you is effort: tailored materials, references and writing samples, plus whatever else a search asks for.
Budget that time for the searches you actually want, rather than spreading it across every posting you see.
Fee policy is each firm's own
How do you find current leadership searches?
Carney Sandoe publishes its openings: its spring 2026 head searches — Nichols School in Buffalo, Allen-Stevenson in New York and Maret in Washington, DC — were public position profiles on the firm's site, and its leadership search page describes how it runs searches for schools.
The timing those profiles reveal matters as much as any single opening: all three targeted a July 2027 start, more than a year after they were posted.
On that evidence, a July start means entering searches the calendar year before — and registering earlier still.
Profiles disclose concrete detail you can plan around.
Nichols School's 2026 profile listed an annual salary range of $375,000-$500,000 plus executive benefits including a housing allowance and tuition remission, alongside its July 2027 start.
That is one school's posted range, not a benchmark for what headships pay.
Educators' Collaborative describes its head-search practice on its own site too — its head of school search page walks through the stakeholder sessions, the Leadership Profile and its support into a new head's first year.
Two habits make the watching manageable.
Check the current-search listings on the sites of firms you're tracking on a regular schedule, and keep your registration materials current so you can move when a brief matches.
We verified individual 2026 searches, not a complete directory of every search running — treat each firm's own site as the live list.
Should you work with several firms at once?
Nothing in Carney Sandoe's fee structure stops you.
Its services are free for candidates because the schools that work with it are its clients and pay its fees — the arrangement its FAQ describes for its Search Group's retained searches.
Confirm the same answer with any additional firm when you register, since fee policy is each firm's own.
Registering with more than one firm widens the pool of briefs you hear about.
The costs are coordination costs: each retained search is its own application with its own materials — the 2026 profiles asked for writing samples written for the specific search — and your references may hear from more than one consultant in the same season.
Manage two things carefully.
Keep your story consistent: the same résumé facts, the same timeline and the same reasons for moving wherever a consultant meets you.
And say where you stand: if you are a finalist in one search while entering another, both firms are better served by knowing it early.
Ongoing registration is different from entering a search.
Carney Sandoe's Placement Group stays open to teachers and administrators through the hiring season, while a retained leadership search is a school-by-school process with its own start and end.
You can be in the placement pool and entering retained searches at once — both are Carney Sandoe services, and its FAQ says its services are completely free for candidates.
Which roles are filled by search vs direct posting?
At Carney Sandoe, the retained side is the senior side: its Search Group runs retained leadership searches, while its Placement Group covers teachers and administrators.
The searches we verified for 2026 were head-of-school searches, plus one senior staff search at a charter network.
Harlem Village Academies, a PreK-12 charter network in New York, used Carney Sandoe in 2026 to hire a Vice President of Advancement at a posted full-time-equivalent salary range of $175,000-$225,000.
One dated example shows reach, not a pattern: one firm ran a senior staff search beyond the head role, and one charter network used a search firm to fill it.
For that side of the ladder, our advancement director career guide covers the role itself.
Beneath the searches, Carney Sandoe's Placement Group works with teachers and administrators open to new roles through the hiring season — its year-round side rather than the retained-search side.
(Teachers entering the market through a placement group is its own topic; this page is about leadership searches.)
We did not find a verified figure for how many leadership roles are filled through firms versus direct postings, so read the balance as unknown and ask the schools and firms you care about.
Direct posting is the other route: schools list leadership openings themselves, and those listings surface on school sites and job boards — head of school jobs among them.
The school-side decision — whether a board retains a firm, what a search costs the school, and how the committee runs — belongs to the employer side of the market.
Our hiring for your school hub collects those guides.
Career information for school leaders and job seekers, not legal or contract advice. Search practices and fee policies are each firm's own — confirm current searches and arrangements with each firm directly before you rely on anything described here.