Despite the critical role academic deans play in the leadership and success of universities, most of what we know about the Canadian deanship we know from an institutional perspective, including our understanding of the recruitment and selec-tion process. The findings presented in this article will facilitate a better understanding of how the increased involvement of external search firms in decanal searches has influenced both the decanal search process and the experiences of those candidates involved in the search. Provosts, deans, and search firm representatives participated in this study. The resultant findings have several important implications for search policy and process, and the conceptual framework proposed will support new research in the area of senior administrative hiring within Canadian universities.