Your search assignment is given the utmost priority by an entire project team consisting of three individuals: an Account Executive, a Search Consultant, and a Project Coordinator. Therefore, more prospective candidates will be recruited, interviewed, screened, and qualified in less time. An attempt is made to leave "no stone unturned" in finding the best-qualified candidates to meet your company's specific qualifications and criterion.

HIGHER QUALITY CANDIDATES (CLIENT BENEFIT)

Working with multiple recruiters encourages haphazard and shoddy work. Why? The "who gets the candidate there first" approach results in a track meet mentality encouraging many recruiters to send in candidates without prescreening them first. At best, it results in poor screening because it takes time to screen a candidate properly. In a track meet, time works against the contingency recruiter. Therefore, more marginal candidates are presented, which creates more work for the client.

FOCUSED COVERAGE (CLIENT BENEFIT)

Working contingency fosters more of an unfocused and hurried approach to working on any assignment because there are no guarantees for the recruiter. Because there are no guarantees, the recruiter is forced to work on more assignments to improve the odds. In addition, the lack of commitment from the employer makes it easier for a recruiter to drop one assignment in order to work on one that the recruiter may feel more confident in being able to fill.

While contingency recruiting can work in filling assignments, it sometimes encourages recruiters to "cherry pick" candidates who are readily available. Many times these are the best of the unemployed, unhappy, or candidates just sitting in their files. They are the "easy to get to" candidates who could be hired quickly, but who may not be the most qualified. Again, consider the time factor. This leaves out the whole realm of candidates who are working but are not on the job market. These employed candidates are, most times, the highest qualified candidates. It takes cold-call recruiting to get to this segment. That takes time and effort, and this works against the contingency recruiter.

Two or more recruiters calling the same candidate about the same opportunity can result in the candidate resisting the opportunity. Why? It indicates that the client does not have confidence in any one recruiter to work on the assignment. If the client does not have confidence in one recruiter, then the candidate receiving multiple calls may question the confidentiality of the relationship. The concern this creates for potential candidates can result in a reluctance to nominate themselves for the position.

Our process requires an up-front retainer or mini-retainer fee and exclusivity to work on the search assignment. For this we guarantee to present qualified candidates within a reasonable amount of time. The client is continually kept informed as to the progress of the search assignment. Expectations would be as follows:

THE COST IS THE SAME (CLIENT BENEFIT)

The total service fee for our retainer arrangement is exactly the same as our contingency service fee, yet the benefits are superior. To illustrate, in the words of one of our satisfied clients, "It is like buying a coach ticket on an airplane and getting moved to first class."

Truly the best approach to hiring the top talent for your company comes from a retained search assignment where both the recruiter and you, as the client, are committed to each other. In both cases, the retained recruiter and client will both benefit by finding and hiring the "best" qualified candidate for your specific career opportunity.