Financial services and consumer products grew their share of searches slightly, while the industrial and technology sectors saw a minor drop. Life sciences and healthcare saw no change.

In the latest quarter, the average fee per executive search assignment rose 6.4 percent over the same period a year earlier and 4.4 percent from the second quarter, the AESC said. That contrasted with an 11.2 percent drop in new executive search starts from a year earlier and a 6.6 percent decrease from the prior quarter.

Despite the decline in search volume, revenue rose 11.7 percent from a year earlier but was flat in comparison with the second quarter.

The report is based on a sample of AESC member search firms representing the activity of 1,430 executive search consultants.

Average revenue in the third quarter rose 11.7 percent from a year ago and just 0.2 percent from the second quarter. Revenue per consultant was up 4.9 percent on average from the year-ago period but dropped 1.5 percent from the prior quarter.

Overall, client demand is "focused on higher-level, quality searches as opposed to the volume associated with more middle to senior recruiting", AESC President Peter Felix wrote.

The increasing focus on top assignments underscores how other recruiting methods pose a challenge to search firms in their hunt for middle to senior management levels, while searches at the top level, which are "more complex, confidential, international in scope and highly sensitive to public scrutiny", are "relatively free of competition", Felix wrote.

The executive search industry generated revenue of $9.74 billion last year, according to the AESC.