In this article, we take a look at what is a fixed free recruitment service, also referred to as flat fee recruitment, and why are small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) using fixed cost recruitment agencies?

Historically, when you wanted to find the best candidates for your company, you would be limited to either using a traditional recruitment agency, or trying to do the recruitment all by yourself. The problem for small and medium sized companies, is that traditional recruitment agencies will often charge a large fee (UK average is £4500) or 10-15% of the candidate’s annual salary. 

Whilst some traditional [contingency] recruitment agencies provide an invaluable service, especially in niche areas that require expert knowledge; the reality is that all businesses could do most recruitment in-house, providing that the processes and resources are in place to manage the workload. 

Read Fixed Fee Vs Contingency Recruitment.

Placing A Job Advert – Cheaper Than Buying Directly

A fixed cost agency typically charges between £200 – £1,200. You may just wish to place a job advert with them to run a fixed fee recruitment campaign where you manage the rest of the recruitment in-house. If so, you are likely to pay a fixed cost of around £200 with no hidden costs, a great option if you need a very cost effective recruitment solution.

Most fixed cost agencies will let you use their Candidate Management Software too (Applicant Tracking System or ATS), which will improve your hiring processes and make ‘doing it by yourself’ more straightforward. Placing a job advert through a fixed cost agency is also likely to be cheaper than buying a job advert directly from a job site or job board.

Read Centralising Recruitment With ATS.

Extra Support- Managed Service

If you need extra support, but would rather avoid high recruitment agency fees, you may wish to opt for a managed service. If so, you are likely to pay fixed fee recruitment costs of around £800. This fixed cost recruitment service could include an account manager who will conduct telephone screening and the agent may offer to book applicants in for your face to face interviews. Of course, a fixed cost agency cannot be an expert in every industry, so the support they provide is more likely to be administrative, yet highly-valuable if you need to save time.

Visit our interviews hub for employer resources.

Flexibility And A 95% Hire Fee Saving

Either way, the flexibility of support will provide you with as little or as much support as you need to be able to manage the workload associated with find the right talent.

More and more SMEs are using fixed cost recruitment agencies to save up to 95% on recruitment fees. Rather than doing the recruitment advertising completely by themselves, the external support of creating and launching the job advert, and filtering the CVs helps them to focus on the latter stages of the recruitment process such as the face to face interview process. 

Fixed Cost Recruitment FAQs

Here we answer your questions on using a fixed fee recruitment agency.