Making a senior career move in commercial print is a genuinely complex decision. You’re not just changing employer — you’re changing your commercial platform, your network, your day-to-day environment and, in many cases, the trajectory of the next five years of your career. Getting it right requires more deliberate thought than most people give it.
Be Clear About What You’re Moving Towards, Not Just Away From
The single most common source of poor senior hires, from both sides of the desk, is candidates who are motivated primarily by leaving their current situation rather than genuinely attracted to a new opportunity. If your primary motivation is a difficult relationship with your MD, a business that’s lost its direction, or frustration at a lack of investment, that’s understandable — but it’s not sufficient as the basis for a career decision.
Before you have any exploratory conversation with a recruiter or a potential employer, be clear about what you’re looking to build. What kind of commercial platform do you want? What scale of business? What ownership structure? What kind of leadership team do you want around you? The more clearly you can articulate the positive answer, the better placed you are to evaluate whether any specific opportunity genuinely represents it.
Understand the Market Before You Move
The senior print market is small and well-connected. The same names appear across shortlists. Your reputation in the market — with clients, with peers, with the specialist recruiters who work in the sector — matters more than any CV. Before you move, make sure you know your genuine market value, not just your current salary.
This means having frank conversations with people who are genuinely close to the hiring activity in the sector. What roles are live? What are businesses actually paying? What is the profile of candidate that is winning those roles? A good specialist recruiter can provide that view without any obligation on either side.
Don’t Underestimate Cultural Fit at Senior Level
The commercial mechanics of a role — scope, salary, title, target — are relatively easy to evaluate. Culture is harder, and it matters more at senior level than anywhere else. You can recover from a role that’s harder than anticipated. It’s much more difficult to recover from a culture that fundamentally doesn’t suit you — particularly if you’ve joined at a level where you’re expected to model the culture for others.
Spend time, in the process and before you accept any offer, genuinely understanding the quality and character of the leadership team, the honest financial health of the business, and the real attitude of the business to investment, people and commercial ambition. Ask uncomfortable questions, and pay close attention to how they’re answered.
Negotiate From Strength, Not Desperation
The worst position from which to negotiate a senior offer is one of urgency. If you need to move quickly — because of a redundancy situation, a deteriorating relationship, or financial pressure — your leverage in the negotiation is significantly reduced, and you’re more likely to accept a role that isn’t quite right because you can’t afford to wait.
The best senior moves happen when a candidate is well-regarded in their current role, not visibly looking, and can afford to be selective. If you’re not in that position today, focus on building it before you move rather than rushing a decision.
We work with a defined network of senior print professionals and speak to many of them regularly — not when they’re actively looking, but as an ongoing conversation about the market. If you’d like a confidential conversation about your own situation, we’d welcome it.
