Two Paths to Hiring a Senior PR Account Leader

Hunt Club sources candidates through operators referring people they've actually worked with, which matters for a role where reputation and composure under real pressure are hard to judge from a resume alone. A peer referral from someone who's watched a candidate handle a real client crisis carries real weight.

The tradeoff is time. A Hunt Club search is a managed process built for a permanent hire, and it needs enough runway to complete properly, which can be a problem if a client relationship is already under strain right now.

Bolster puts the agency in the driver's seat, letting you browse vetted candidates directly, including people open to fractional or interim client leadership roles while you figure out whether a permanent hire is the right call. That flexibility matters for an agency still working out its growth structure.

The tradeoff is that you're doing more of the vetting yourself, without a recruiter pre-screening for the specific composure-under-pressure quality that matters so much in this particular kind of role.

SHRM's 2025 benchmarking survey found nonexecutive hires averaging $5,475, with executive hires climbing to $35,879 once agency fees and internal recruiting time are folded in¹. A Hunt Club search for a permanent senior leader will track toward that executive figure; a fractional engagement through Bolster runs as a lower-commitment ongoing rate instead, which matters for a smaller agency still testing what senior leadership actually needs to look like before it commits.

SHRM's 2025 data separately found nonexecutive roles taking a median 44 days from requisition to offer accepted, with executive searches often stretching longer². If a specific account is at risk right now, that lag matters more than the fee difference, and a fractional hire through Bolster can typically start sooner, sometimes within the same week you first reach out.

A permanent hire through Hunt Club carries more downside if the fit is wrong, since client relationships become entangled with a specific person's tenure at the agency. A fractional hire through Bolster is easier to end if it's not working, but a client who's built trust with a fractional leader may be unsettled when that engagement ends.

Weigh this against your actual client mix. Agencies with a few large, high-touch retainers should lean toward whichever option offers more relationship continuity; agencies with many smaller accounts have more room to experiment without putting a single major relationship at risk.

Whichever platform you use, build a real crisis scenario into the interview: a client facing negative press that's spreading fast, and ask the candidate to walk through exactly how they'd respond in the first hour. Listen for specificity, not polish. A candidate who's actually handled this before will have concrete instincts; one who hasn't will default to generic reassurance.

Named journalist relationships age quickly as reporters move beats and outlets, so weight a candidate's process for building and maintaining media relationships more heavily than a specific list of contacts they currently hold. Ask how they've rebuilt a relationship after a beat reporter moved on, since that turnover happens constantly in media and the agency needs someone who adapts to it rather than relying on a fixed contact list that goes stale within a year or two.

After a first round of conversations on either platform, revisit your original assumption about whether the role needs to be permanent. It's common for agencies to discover mid-search that a strong fractional candidate actually solves the problem better than the permanent hire they originally set out to find, and it's worth staying open to that update rather than forcing the process toward a predetermined outcome.

Treat the first few conversations as information gathering, not just candidate evaluation, and be willing to change course on structure even after outreach has already started.

Use these prompts in interviews on either platform:

• Build a crisis scenario into the interview, such as a client facing fast-spreading negative press, and ask how the candidate would respond in the first hour.
• Listen for specific, concrete instincts rather than polish, since someone who has handled a real crisis will have them.
• Ask how the candidate rebuilt a media relationship after a beat reporter moved on, rather than asking for a list of current contacts.
• Revisit whether the role must be permanent after the first round of conversations, since a strong fractional candidate may solve the problem better.