Recruitment agency
Also called: headhunter, search firm, staffing agency
The three flavors of agency
Worth knowing the differences, because pricing and behavior follow:
- Contingency: paid only when a hire happens. Lower commitment, higher volume per recruiter, lower quality bar. 18-25% of first-year salary.
- Retained: paid in installments through the search regardless of outcome. Used for executive and very senior roles. Higher commitment, deeper search. 30-35% of first-year compensation.
- Staffing / contract: places contractors on short-term or temp-to-perm contracts. Different model entirely; the agency stays employer-of-record.
For SMBs, contingency is the most common engagement.
When agencies make sense
Three honest use cases:
- Senior roles you don’t know how to find. A head-of-engineering search where you’ve never hired a head of engineering before.
- Surge capacity. Opening a new office in a city where you have no network.
- A role outside your industry. First sales hire for a product company.
Outside these, in-house tends to outperform.
How to engage them well
Three rules:
- Brief the agency the same way you’d brief an internal recruiter. A 30-minute kickoff with the hiring manager, sharing the hiring plan and the criteria.
- Cap the number of candidates per week. Five strong submissions beats fifty weak ones.
- Pay the candidate, not the search. Tie a portion of the fee to retention at 6 months. Aligns the agency’s incentive with yours.
Where Join fits
Agency-sourced candidates flow into Join through guest access. The agency uploads; the in-house team reviews; the data stays in the company’s system. See the features page.
