Most freight forwarding searches fail before a single name is ever shared.

The reason is almost always sequencing: the wrong evaluation step treated as optional, or run in the wrong order.

We evaluate five things on every search. We rank them by one axis: what it costs to get each one wrong.

1. Platform fit ➡️ the most expensive mistake to make. A strong producer placed on the wrong platform underperforms regardless of their own ability, and the cost arrives in months of salary, lost pipeline, and a disrupted team.

2. Compensation frame. This has to precede every name. Internal salary bands routinely fail to reflect what the market actually pays for trade lane fluency, vertical knowledge, and closing history. Build a search on the wrong number and you never surface the right pool.

3. Logistics fluency. Non-negotiable. Freight forwarding sales requires genuine working knowledge of carriers, NVOCCs, and ocean and air operations. No onboarding programme closes that gap in front of a shipper.

4. Relationship capital, read in context. A book of business follows the platform and vertical that built it, not the person. Evaluate it without that context and you get hires who disappoint in year one.

5. Cultural fit. The least costly to catch late, and the reason most often given for a failure that actually happened higher up the ladder.

That order is what makes the methodology load-bearing. The further down a mistake sits, the cheaper it is to fix.

If your current search does not start with platform fit, you are starting in the wrong place. Ask any recruiter you speak to if they can show you theirs.