Objective.
Provide an independent, reproducible ranking of the world’s leading recruiting, staffing and executive search companies based solely on publicly available digital signals. No paid submissions, private surveys or non-public datasets were used.

Company Universe Construction.

• Initial pool (>1,000 companies): identified through visibility in professional communities, industry directories, expert mentions, media citations and search presence.
• Coverage expansion: additional firms sourced via analyst lists, network affiliations, client references and sector-specific press coverage.
• Data hygiene: consolidation of global vs. local entities, normalization of naming, removal of duplicates and exclusion of pure job boards.

Important note on global networks.
The market of recruiting and executive search companies is heavily shaped by large partner networks and franchise-style international groups. Many such networks operate under a single global website and shared social media accounts, which can artificially inflate digital signals for their local offices. To prevent distortions, all such repetitions were carefully removed, and digital weights associated with international networks were localized at the level of the head office or global headquarters. Local or franchise offices are included as independent companies only when they have a fully separate digital identity.

Ranking Inputs (public data).

• Employee count based on publicly available data (primarily LinkedIn).
• Social media reach and activity including LinkedIn followers and posting engagement.
• Brand visibility measured through search interest and digital footprint.
• Website traffic based on public estimations of monthly visits.
• Revenue (2023–2025, optional): publicly available financial disclosures, when present, acted as an additional positive factor but were not required for inclusion, as most companies in the sector are private.

Statistical Treatment.
All variables are normalized to smooth heavy-tailed distributions, standardized as z-scores and combined into a weighted composite visibility index. The final score is scaled to 0–1000, where 1000 represents the strongest overall digital and operational footprint within the dataset.