Contingent vs. Retained Recruiters

Contingent recruiters rarely conduct research or spend a great deal of time hunting for the best candidates. They instead rely on their storehouse of candidates available at their fingertips. These agencies receive resumes every day from job seekers and use advertisements and internet tools such as job boards and resume databases to identify candidates.

Due to the nature of their compensation, contingent recruiters must focus on the positions with the highest probability of a placement being made quickly and easily, often shying away from "hard to fill job orders." They have the freedom to do so since there is no up-front mutual commitment from either the client or the recruiter to fill the position. Companies who use contingent recruiters run the risk of the position not being filled or being presented with less qualified candidates since every candidate is fair game for every client. Due to the nature of the agency relationship, clients may be in competition with one another for the same candidate. A high-quality candidate may be hired away by another client of the agency before you have a run at them.

That being said, contingent agencies are especially useful on lower level, low impact "commodity" positions where there is a greater amount of turnover and a smaller monetary impact to an organization if a bad hire were to be made. Typically contingent recruiters are used to fill positions below $75K in annual salary.

Retained search firms are utilized to fill high-impact, management and executive level positions that require much more extensive research and the attraction of accomplished leaders who are not currently seeking new employment. Retained search firms take a focused approach in approaching key individuals on your behalf and take a great deal of care in assessing interested parties. Because they are put on a retainer with a portion of the fee paid up front, a retained search consultant has the ability and incentive to be completely objective in their assessment of every candidate, and truly recommend the best fit.

Working on a retained basis also allows the search firm to expend time and resources on research to identify and contact every possible source and potential candidate for your management position. Further, any candidate surfaced through a retained firm's recruiting efforts is solely assigned to that client, and is not available to interview for any other clients of the firm until your search has come to a complete resolution.

Retained firms are often times utilized to fill very difficult positions that other firms would not spend the time to fill. Because they are under a retained agreement, there is a high-level of commitment and obligation to get the search done. Retained firms survive only if they complete the work they are engaged in and produce the best quality candidates for their client companies. Due to the comprehensive nature of their work, retained firms are often able to guarantee their results for a much longer period of time.