Guide
Three ways to work with a recruitment agency, and when each one fits. A plain-English guide for founders and hiring managers deciding how to hire.
The model matters as much as the agency. The right choice depends on how many people you are hiring and how critical the roles are. Here is how the three common models compare, and when we would recommend each.
What it is: You only pay if and when the agency places a candidate. No upfront cost.
Pricing: A percentage of first-year salary, on a successful hire only.
Best for: One-off or occasional hires, filling a single role, or trialling an agency.
Watch out: Agencies juggle many roles at once and compete on speed, so your search may not get dedicated focus.
What it is: A dedicated, committed search with full market coverage, paid in stages regardless of outcome.
Pricing: A fixed fee, usually split across engagement, shortlist and placement.
Best for: Senior, leadership and business-critical roles you cannot get wrong (CTO, VP Engineering, staff engineers).
Watch out: Higher commitment and cost; the right call when getting the hire wrong is expensive.
What it is: A recruiter works inside your team and owns hiring end-to-end for a period.
Pricing: A predictable monthly fee for dedicated capacity, not a per-hire percentage.
Best for: Hiring at volume, entering a new market, or scaling a team quickly.
Watch out: Best value when hiring is continuous; overkill for a single vacancy.
If you have a single role to fill and want the lowest commitment, start with contingent recruitment. If the role is senior or business-critical — a CTO, VP or Head of Engineering — a retained search buys you full market coverage and a committed process. If you are hiring several people at once or opening a new market, embedded recruitment (RPO) is usually the most cost-effective. Whichever you choose, every candidate we put forward is technically screened by us first. Not sure? Tell us the roles and we will recommend the right approach honestly.
FAQ
Contingent recruitment is paid only on a successful placement, so agencies compete on speed and cast wide. Retained search is a dedicated, fixed-fee engagement with full market coverage, including passive candidates who are not applying. Contingent suits one-off hires; retained suits senior, business-critical roles.
Embedded recruitment, sometimes called RPO (recruitment process outsourcing), places a dedicated recruiter inside your team to own hiring end-to-end for a fixed monthly fee. It gives you the focus and brand consistency of an in-house hire without the fixed headcount, and suits hiring at volume.
It depends on volume. For a single hire, contingent has the lowest commitment (you only pay on success). For several hires at once, embedded/RPO is usually more cost-effective per hire than paying a contingent percentage on each. Retained is priced for the roles where getting it wrong is the real cost.
For an occasional hire, contingent. For a leadership or business-critical role, retained search. For a burst of hiring or a new market, embedded/RPO. We recommend the right fit for your stage honestly rather than defaulting to the most expensive option.
Tell us what you’re hiring for and we’ll come back with a plan, and usually a technically screened shortlist faster than you’d expect.