More executives get an outside "onboarding" coach when they join a new employer these days.

This kind of coach helps a new hire become accustomed to a different corporate culture -- and, it is hoped, improves retention rates. So-called onboarding or assimilation coaching is gaining popularity partly because executive-search firms want to move beyond their traditional areas of expertise. Some critics doubt that search firms have the expertise to diversify successfully, however.

In March, Heidrick & Struggles International Inc. entered a revenue-sharing agreement with Lore International Institute, an executive-development concern in Durango, Colo. The big search firm is starting to roll out its coaching services, which typically will cost an employer between $15,000 and $20,000 and last three to six months.

Heidrick & Struggles officials hope that 30% to 40% of its executive searches nationwide will include assimilation coaching by the end of next year. "There is great receptivity to this," says Wes Richards, a senior managing partner. Companies' expectations for new senior managers "are very, very different in the economy we face today."

Similarly, rival Korn/Ferry International plans to introduce its coaching program at most of its major North and South American offices by April. The Los Angeles concern has formed an alliance called KFYCoach with Canadian executive coach Marti Smye. The group's team of 60 coaches typically will provide six weeks of assimilation advice for about $10,000.

Coaches believe the honeymoon period is an ideal time to advise newly recruited executives. "The opportunity to effect long-term sustained behavior change is much greater" at that point, says Gordon Curtis, a principal of Curtis Consulting, an executive coaching and search consultancy in Marblehead, Mass.

One obstacle search firms face in promoting new services is clients' perception of a potential conflict of interest. Companies usually prefer to keep "an arm's-length relationship" with headhunters, fearing they could poach other executives from a firm, says Mr. Curtis.

Ms. Smye also concedes the search industry must overcome the popular view that newcomer coaching is an unnecessary frill. "In a client's mind, they are hiring a very good person. They've used a professional" recruiter, she says.

Dan Levy says that a coach from Taylor-Rodgers & Associates of Stamford, Conn., helped him to understand and adapt to a very different business role when he joined accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1999 as a director in its business-process outsourcing practice. Previously, he mainly had worked in corporate-finance positions for industrial companies. "So the transition into public accounting was a bit of a culture shock to me," the 54-year-old executive recollects.

By diversifying, search firms hope to find a much-needed new source of business. The U.S. search industry's revenue probably will fall between 10% and 20% this year from 2001 -- a year in which revenue sagged 30%, predicts Scott Scanlon, president of search-firm industry consultants Hunt-Scanlon Advisers in Stamford.

Yet Mr. Scanlon doubts that most recruiters can flourish by offering different services such as coaching. "In the late 1980s, search firms were trying to get into compensation-advisory services," he recalls. "It kind of fell flat on its face. I really see this as going back to that trend."

Small search firms with coaching experience strongly disagree. Taylor-Rodgers, with three recruiters, has seen its retention rates for placed executives beat industry averages by a significant margin over the past few years.

The firm has included coaching services since its founding five years ago. More than 90% of executives wooed by Taylor-Rodgers now stay on the job for longer than two years, according to President and Chief Executive Richard W. Taylor.

In April, Mr. Levy became chief financial officer of Nash_Elmo Industries, a maker of engineered vacuum systems in Trumbull, Conn. But no one coached him after his latest move. "I was going back into a role that I was more familiar with," he explains.