Recruitment Q&A

Hi Micha,

It is possible to engage some consultants and agencies on a fixed fee irrespective of the role. There are some agencies that have a service model where they change 5k for example to fill a permanent admin role. Though there are not many of them, and their service offering maybe as simple as post and pre-screen candidates and that’s it.
The more usual model is to negotiate terms with an agency. Usually this is about 14-19% of a salary of the person you choose to hire.
Some roles will have a higher percentile depending on how hard they are to fill, similarly if they are more senior roles – Where the candidate’s salary is over 150k for example there will be less candidates in that pool; So the fee will go up because they are harder to find.
If you work with one agency exclusively they may reduce the fee when they negotiate terms with you.
If you are going to spend 100k salary of a Developer and also pay up to 19k to your recruiter, you have to ask… Is that $ well spent? Could you for example spend some of that on a digital marketing recruitment campaign, internal blogging, and social media presence that draws candidates to you on an ongoing basis.
That’s said once you have an agency working on your role there is no guarantee they will find you the developer of your dreams either.
And the cost of a bad hire IMO has very little to do with your external or internal recruiter. In my nearly 20 experience in HR and Recruitment, poor hiring usually comes from the company not having little ability to define its company culture and then interview for it, as well as a lack of understanding and practices to undertake interviewing for emotional intelligence.  “Hire in haste…”