One of the most important questions you need to ask any recruiting firm that you’re considering for hiring is: “What is your process for fixing candidates and how are you going to get compensated for that work?”
A plan, including a process, methodology, and systems are great pathways to success versus hope for the best plan.
Contingency firms spend very little time understanding your needs, short-term and long-term. Therefore, they’re limited in understanding where you are with your business today or tomorrow. You’re not the only client unfortunately that they understand very little of. They get paid when you make a hire, therefore they’re on a hope plan and they throw enough résumés at you hoping that one sticks.
In fact, you have probably had some experience in having résumés thrown at you. Maybe you HR Department has even presented you candidates that aren’t a good match, hoping for the best.
The other side of the coin is how retained search firms get paid and what their focus is. Generally, they’re going to be identifying your competitors and the best people within those organizations that might be a good match for you, and they do a direct recruiting process. And the way that they generally get paid is one-third in advance, another one-third within thirty days or maybe when they give you a short list, and a final one-third generally thirty days after that. So, at the end of the day, within sixty days they have been paid in full.
We, at JK Consultants, are a retained executive search firm that is client-driven. We find eighty percent of the best candidates – the bulls eyes – within three weeks’ time. And we can custom design a plan that makes sense for you.