Client Services
LEVELS OF SERVICE
Broadly speaking there are two different levels of service which we provide and most solutions we recommend fall within the framework of these two options.
Partnership Recruitment then blends the best of these two services to provide bespoke solutions for multiple hire assignments.
FINDING YOU THE BEST PERSON OUT THERE –
NOT JUST THE BEST PERSON LOOKING!
1Contingency or 'Success Only'
This is the most common form of a recruitment agency-based activity and is often the service to which most people will have been exposed.
In this instance, we put candidates forward and, if you decide to recruit one of the people we introduce to you, there is a fee payable based on a percentage of the first year’s basic salary. This is usually 25%.
But if you don’t take anyone from us, then there is no fee.
Positives
This methodology works best when there is a good supply of people with the correct skills who are on the market and are actively looking to make a move.
And you only pay a fee if an agency comes up with a candidate whom you like and end up recruiting.
Whilst it can be very effective, and there is an obvious appeal in that you only pay if it works, the downside is that this tends to be the end of the market where the majority of negative experiences occur.
Negatives
Agencies who are active in this market are ultimately playing a numbers game to achieve their placements and I will explain how and why a little later.
Whilst Success Only can work when the criteria you are judging candidates by are relatively low and there is a good supply of people who fit the bill from the category of person who is actively looking, it has fundamental drawbacks when a position is harder to fill, or the skills required of the candidate are more specific and finite.
Most of the bad experiences people encounter when using Success Only recruitment companies come from either poor levels of service or lack of depth of service.
The poor levels of service arise from the Recruitment Industry’s own poor track record in recruiting, training and keeping good members of staff who, through their own personal failings or the failings of the company they work for, lack any real understanding of the positions they are working on. They are put under great pressure to achieve targets and, as a result, throw mud at the wall in terms of the people they send through to you in the hope that some of it sticks. If the product of their searches fails to yield suitable candidates, they lack the skills and internal or external motivation to go beyond the confines of the people available to them in their “Actively Looking” files and simply move on to the next vacancy and throw some more mud at that wall.
Or poor levels of service can stem from the lack of personal integrity of the Recruiter. (Doesn’t get back on time, oversells candidates, half-truths and downright lies).
Lack of depth of service comes about because Success Only companies either don’t want to go beyond doing easy and quick file searches for systemic reasons or are incapable of handling an assignment which is problematic and requires more in-depth effort, application or skill. They just want to move on to the next quick, easier hit.
Example
Typically, a Recruitment Consultant who works on Success Only basis will be working on 30 – 40 vacancies at any one time.
Upon receiving your instructions and specification for the kind of person you are looking for the Consultant will search their files of the people who have registered as actively looking and do the best job they can and send them through to you after investing 4 – 5 hours of their time.
If someone fits the bill, then great! You get a new recruit and the Consultant gets a fee.
But if the calibre of the person they send through is poor and not someone you wish to recruit then that Consultant will lack the skills or the motivation to broaden the scope of the search and will simply move on to repeat the process with one of the other vacancies they are working on, leaving you high and dry.
Your instinct at this point may well be to contact another recruitment company or indeed two or three other companies.
But Contingency or Success Only recruitment companies, including ourselves when we are asked to work this way, all source our candidates who are actively looking in the same ways.
We all have our own Databases
We run internet Adverts
We have our own Networks and Contacts
And we pay for the big subscription-based databases.
However, as we are subscribing to the same databases and advertising in the same places you are largely getting the same candidates from us when using a Success Only methodology So, by going to a second or a third agency you are not getting two or three times the amount of new candidates
Agency 1 = 85% of candidates actively looking
Agency 2 = 95%
and Agency 3 = 99%
And this is because we are all fundamentally fishing in the same pool
And this pool, if you like, is the pool of candidates who are actively looking for a new job.
So, if you want to access materially different, higher quality candidates you need to look outside the supply of people actively looking which a trained recruiter can put at your disposal should you so wish. How that is done will be explained in the second level of service we offer.
But for now, in summarising the Success Only service:
Success Only Summary
If you do decide that Success Only is the way you want to go then the two key elements, from a client’s point of view, in deciding which Recruitment company to use when they are offering you a Success only service is how well resourced they are in terms of databases, networks and advertising fire power and the personal qualities of the individual recruiter you are working with. Things like their knowledge, honesty and integrity.
I am sure that through your own experiences you have already excluded many companies who have not come up to scratch based on the above.
And we are happy to throw our hats in to the ring and compete with the best of them applying those principles because we are at least as well-resourced as the any of the competition and we are happy to put whatever capabilities we may have as recruiters up against whoever else is out there.
Success Only Negatives
But the fundamental problems with recruiting using Success Only are that:
You are only accessing candidates who are actively looking.
And the depth of Service you are getting is limited due to poor levels of mutual commitment to work together to fill the vacancy. That is to say, when a position is hard to fill, and more time consuming and skilled methods are needed to source, attract and assess candidates, the fee level and commitment from the client are insufficient to allow an experienced recruiter to justify the time and effort to provide a no stone left unturned level of service.
2Full Market Search and Selection
The second principal service we provide is Search and Selection or ‘Retained Recruitment’ as it can be known.
Full Market Search
When a position requires someone with a high degree of skill or finite, specific skills with a relatively high scarcity value it is unlikely that you are going to be lucky enough to find lots of well qualified candidates who just happen to be all looking at the same time and the same place as when and where you are recruiting.
In fact, let’s take a specific case in hand.
Example
Sales Account Manager – Germany
There will probably be about 75 – 100 people currently based in this geographic area can do the job
The average number of people who will be actively looking for a new role will be 5% at most.
So, this means you will be very lucky if more than four or five well qualified candidates will be on the market.
And just because there are four or five actively looking it doesn’t mean they are the best four or five out there who could do the job for you.
In fact, why are they on the market?
Certainly, there are people out there looking for work with genuine reasons but equally there are a fair number of professional job hoppers out there as well as people who are available because no one else wants them or they are just not up to the job they are currently doing.
Either way, there are around 95% of suitably qualified people doing a good job but who you can’t get to through traditional, success only means.
And these are the people you want to be talking to, the winners, the accomplishers, the high achievers. The people doing a great job for their current employer and who could do a great job for you.
To do this we need to firstly identify them, make a direct approach and tell them why the grass may be greener with you.
Now we are not saying that this means you will have 95 quality people forming a queue to be considered but it does mean you are targeting and accessing the best possible people out there and not just the best possible people who happen to be looking and which is a much smaller pool to be fishing in.
Full Market Search and Selection is therefore a more thorough and complete way of recruiting which leaves no stone unturned in providing you with the best person possible and not just the best of who is looking which is what you get from Success Only. In opting for this service, you are getting 10 – 14 days of a skilled recruiter’s time and efforts (such a recruiter would work on 3 – 4 vacancies max at one time in this way) set against the 4 – 5 hours that Success Only engenders.
Worst Scenario
So even when you approached all 95% of the non-actively looking potential candidates (as well as the 5% who are already looking) you can say you have done everything rather than be left wondering (as maybe you are now) what else you can do and this then allows you to make a business decision to either lower the bar in terms of profile or up the salary if the skill sets are none negotiable.
Best Scenario
It means you will have done everything there is to do to get the best person available for the job and not just put your toe in the pool of people actively looking.
Selection
The name of the service is Full Market Search and Selection.
Even when there are lots of potential people who are actively looking and on the market some clients will ask us to interview candidates on their behalf in order to present them with the best three so that once they have given us the brief, the only thing they have to do is put half a day aside to interview three people who can all do the job and they then decide whom they prefer.
This service is mainly for clients who don’t have the inclination to deal with lots of agencies and wade through mounds of CVs or set up and interview lots of different people. They just don’t have the time.
We will interview all the possibles and get this down to a shortlist of the best three for you to see on a date of your choice.
We will then send you their CVs and our assessment based on our interview with them which includes why we are putting them forward and questions we think need bringing up at your interview with them.
So, once you have instructed us to proceed and we have agreed the skills and characteristics then the next thing you need to do is put a day aside to see these people.
Fees
For the Full Market Search and Selection Service we charge 25% but it is payable in three stages.
The first stage becomes due upon commencement and pays for the work of identifying and approaching the people we want to speak to.
The second stage pays for the interview and assessment of the candidates and is payable when we produce three people for you to interview who meet the mutually pre-agreed criteria for the role we have been tasked with working on.
The final third is paid upon the acceptance by the candidate of a written job offer by the client.
Success Only – we charge 25% because we are working without a net and this fee needs to finance the time spent on not just your vacancy but other vacancies where no fee is obtained. Unfair perhaps but that is the way success only recruitment companies survive if neither recruiter nor client company is prepared to make a commitment to one other.
Please note that the retained option requires a 10-week period of exclusivity from the client for our efforts to bear fruit.
3Partnership Recruitment
When a client is in a start-up phase in Europe or undergoing a rapid rise in growth and needs to recruit in bulk over the coming period we can act as an outsourced, turnkey recruitment facility for you.
long term partnerships
Not only will we work on each role as it becomes live, but we will set up bespoke databases of candidates you will either need now or in the medium to long term and prepare for the anticipated needs ahead through our networking and marketing efforts so that we, in effect, act as your one stop shop and exclusive agents for your recruitment needs for a fixed term.
This means we can hit the ground running when the position does become open and can satisfy your wants and needs with more speed and certainty.
The more we work with a client the more efficient our ability becomes to source, match and assess candidates on your behalf, not just in terms of skill sets but personality and fit with company culture.
This will save you time and effort by avoiding having to deal with multiple suppliers from a cold start who don’t have access to the full picture.
For multiple recruitments done on a Partnership basis we will negotiate a bespoke fee structure to incentivise and reward repeat assignment business on an ongoing basis.
Our ultimate goal is to turn all clients in to long term partners by providing you with a quality service you are happy with to the extent that there is no point going elsewhere.