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When A Recruitment Agency Isn’t A Recruitment Agency

When A Recruitment Agency Isn’t A Recruitment Agency

Not all companies working in recruitment are created equal. When you think of a recruitment agency, you may image an office filled with people on the phones with both companies and candidates. They get paid on commission (typically 15-20% of the candidate’s salary) when they successfully get someone employed at a company; until that happens, no payment is due.

There is now a new breed of recruitment agency. They work on a flat/fixed fee basis, with payment due up front. The level of fee paid though is considerably less. Taking Hiring People’s pricing, for a very similar service to a traditional recruitment agency, we will only charge £799. That is our maximum fee (unless a bespoke package is required).

The only catch working with a flat fee recruitment agency is that you will always have to pay, even if you don’t employ anyone from the research which they do. For certain roles, it is a no-brainer for a company to work with a fixed fee recruitment agency. For other roles, it might be too much of a gamble.

Roles Which Work Great With A Flat Fee Recruitment Agency

These are the roles where flat fee recruitment is the best way to advertise a job:

  • Retail roles
  • Customer Service
  • Technical Analysists
  • IT Helpdesk roles
  • Web Developers
  • Metal Workers
  • Administrators
  • Junior Accountants
  • Business Development Managers
  • Warehouse Assistants
  • Bookkeepers
  • Telesales Advisors
  • Software Developers

If you are advertising such a role, working with a flat fee recruitment agency is likely to save you a significant amount, especially with certain roles, such as software developers having salaries in excess of £50,000 a year, meaning a saving of around £9,000! That is a sum I am sure that all company owners would definitely like to see retained in a business over being spent!

When you are wanting to recruit multiple employees, with a traditional recruitment agency, you would likely end up paying for each employee. With a fixed fee recruiter, you would only pay once; it doesn’t matter how many employees you employee from the pool of candidates which are put forward.

We Will Be Upfront And Say That The Following Roles Can Be More Challenging To Fill:

  • Nurses
  • Doctors
  • Very senior positions
  • Highly specialised roles

Roles such as those above are likely to be best sourced through a contingency, traditional recruitment agency as the chance of success is reduced.

If you only want to advertise a job online, over receive the full service which is possible with a flat fee recruitment agency, that is also possible, allowing you to filter and review CVs, along with asking candidates in for an interview.

For more details on recruitment agency charges, read How Much Do Recruitment Agencies Charge?

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