How do we get paid?

Becs and I have been discussing recently how misunderstood the role of a recruiter is and how many people don't understand how we get paid.

So, a short explanation with some thoughts about professional services in general.

There are a few different types of recruitment consultancy

a) search and select (commonly known as head hunters). In this example, the consultant (or agency) will be paid in three stages (typically). The first stage is to compile a short list of candidates for the client, the second stage is when all the interviews are arranged, and the third stage is when the successful candidate is placed into the job. This type of recruitment is, 99% of the time, agreed to on an exclusive basis so that the client is guaranteed to find their new person through the consultant or agency appointed, so there is no financial risk on either side.

b) RPO or outsourced recruitment, where an agency acts as an internal recruitment team and, in many cases, operates a payroll system for contract or temporary staff on behalf of the client.

c) contingency (like Moxie and Mettle, and Rustic and Rural, our recruitment agencies). And this is the one I'd like to explain in detail, as it affects us, of course, and this is mostly how we work with clients (although we do also offer a Search and Selection service, in case you didn't know!)

A client (employer) will appoint us to source, recruit, and place a candidate with them for a particular job role, and the client pays for the service. We don't charge candidates for working with us as a candidate in our recruitment businesses (although we do offer additional services and referrals to other providers of career-related services, which are chargeable)

So, the client pays the bill (not the candidate), and usually, that's when the candidate agrees on the contract and/or starts work with the client. So, at the point that the offer is made and terms agreed between client and candidate, our fee is payable. But not until then. So the work that we do up to that point, if the client doesn't offer one of our candidates, is not paid in advance, and in some cases, we don't make the placement and so don't charge a fee.

The reasons for not placing the candidate can vary from the job being withdrawn or hugely changed from the original job description (so we may have to start again with the advertising and matching for the role), the candidate offered the role decides not to take the job, the client sources a candidate from another recruiter, or directly...there are loads of reasons why it sometimes doesn't work out.

We are 100% pragmatic about this, as we choose to run our agencies on this model, and so we have accepted that we will interview many candidates who we don't place and take many jobs that we don't recruit into. However, we always consider both client and candidate the same in terms of our network, and we appreciate entirely that our clients become candidates and our candidates become clients. Everyone has equal value, and we can't make any placements at all without both sides of the equation! Just as a side note, the perception that using a recruitment agency is too expensive for many clients is an interesting one, as very often, when the time taken for all parties involved in a direct recruit is costed accurately, it's less cost to use a recruiter, and I'm happy to share our Cost of Recruitment Calculator to demonstrate this, email me ([email protected]). The reason that recruiters who work on a contingency basis charge the way that we do (which I believe is totally outdated, and is why we have several other options also available), is because of the time spent on roles we don't fill, and with candidates we don't place....

To recruit the right candidate for each role, we go through a lengthy and detailed process, from taking the briefing on the role from the client (in a lot of detail) to advertising the role through our website, job boards, and social media, matching the job to our existing database, featuring the job on our newsletters, promoting the job through our referral system, and repeating this process until the job is filled, sometimes over several weeks.

Once we've identified a candidate who is suitable in terms of skills and experience, we then brief them on the role, and if the candidate is interested in the job, we will send the CV with supporting notes and a cover letter for consideration by the client. This process is also repeated over and over again until the client finds their new person. In the meantime, of course, we arrange all the interviews, give and get feedback from all parties, and when it comes to offer, we negotiate terms and agree on start dates between the client and the candidate.

In order for this process to be successful, we are constantly interviewing new candidates and speaking to those who have been registered with us previously to alert them of new roles and opportunities. We are continuously in touch with our clients and have numerous ways of keeping in touch through newsletters, social media posts, job alerts and sending information on new services and referrals to other service providers who may be useful to our network (career coaches and other professional services, for example).

From a client point of view, the more information and accuracy with which we are briefed in the first instance, and the better the communication through the recruitment journey, the more likely we are to find the best person quickly and efficiently.

From a candidate's point of view, we interview thousands of people a year. We have a superb CRM and are GDPR compliant, of course, and we are VERY experienced recruiters who are very successful in our market sectors (marketing, PR, social media, events, digital marketing, communications, events, and office support). Becs has 22 years' of experience in this job, and I've got 32 years; we know our stuff!

With the market as it is at the moment (economic uncertainty leading to redundancies and a very volatile recruitment market), we have an even higher than usual amount of candidates to look after...and we encourage everyone to sign up for our newsletter at Moxie and Mettle to receive alerts of new roles, to make sure we are helping as many people as we can. Many of our candidates are actually seeking career advice (particularly if a career change is on the cards), rather than recruitment services, so we can refer to qualified and experienced coaches who can help (that's not what a recruiter does, FYI). Many also need assistance with CVs and LinkedIn profiles, and again, we can refer to specialists or our CV and LinkedIn Workshop (delivered by me!).

We are naturally really good at referring people to each other, but of course, from a jobs and recruitment point of view, we can only do that when a client appoints us to recruit. Our network is huge, with over 35,000 connections on LinkedIn, a Facebook Group with over 14,000 people in it (related to job seeking in the creative sector), and a database of tens of thousands, so we are connected to lots of people in our sectors.

So, that's a summary of how it all works over at Moxie & Mettle and Rustic & Rural, any questions, as always, let me know!

Take care

Liz

Liz Gadd | [email protected] | www.lizgadd.co.uk | 07377 400414

Ways to work with us

Moxie and Mettle - recruiters in PR, marketing, social media, creative, communications, events and digital marketing

Rustic and Rural - recruiters in the agriculture, farming, environmental, sustainability, rural affairs and country sectors, including equestrian sport

Recruitment Bootcamp - training for in-house and agency leadership teams in best practices in recruitment

Liz Gadd - consultancy, support, and advice in all things recruitment-related!

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