So, you want to understand our fees and how we structure them?
No problem read on…
How Much Does It Cost to Recruit through The Treasury Recruitment Company?
Well, it depends…let me explain. We do a great job at recruiting Treasury professionals. We work in a niche industry that means lower volumes of activity, so we don’t benefit from the repeat assignments and volume of positions that many generalist recruiters have access to. That makes it harder to work at lower fee levels we must target candidates and clients and costing us time, effort and money when researching to find talented treasury professionals. That must be paid for us to give a great service and this is what we want to do!
We are often asked to agree to 18%, 15% maybe 12% fees….
“Mike our other guys on our PSL have agreed to work at cheap rates. You are at 30% for the senior roles and 25% for the junior roles”
Yes, I am, as that is what it costs us to recruit people for you! Why don’t you give the role to the guys on your PSL at 15% and see how they get on? There’s a reason they are cheap…they will look for the next couple of months or so and they may get lucky and find one or two candidates. Good luck to them, they will need it. After 6 to 8 weeks they have not produced a successful result! I get the call:
“Mike I want you to do a search for us”
“OOOOKAYYYY” I say with trepidation knowing what’s coming next….
“Mike, we would love to give you a crack at the search!”
“Greatttttt”
“BUT we want you to match the fees of those guys who have produced no results for the past 8 weeks….”
RIGHT….
“Yep, we still want you to work on a contingent basis where all the risk lies with you”
RIGHT….
“Mike, I want you to invest your time and money in doing the search with no guarantee of revenue in the process but don’t worry zero cost and zero commitment from us”
Yep 100% risk to you and 0% to us to use your services.
Oh, and by the way you should know you will be going into a “scorched earth” Treasury Recruitment market where a series of generalist recruiters have blanketed the market, mis-sold the role, some of them can barely spell the word treasury let alone recruit for it. If there was someone nearly suitable they have probably decided that as you are using a terrible agency to recruit you’re not serious about treasury anyway and they have been turned off to the role by the recruiter.
Mike, good luck with the role because you are going to need it!
Okay, this sounds like one of my RANTS. Well, it’s not as we can offer at least THREE, YES, THREE SOLUTIONS!
Our fees depend upon what method you want to use with us – it may be one of the following;
SOLUTION 1 – CONTINGENT SEARCH
“No-Win, No-Fee” / “No Cure, No Fee” – Full Fee If I Am Successful!
A Client will pay us say “25% or 30%” fee for a full search if we are instructed on it but it is a “NO-WIN, NO FEE contingent basis”.
If we find them the right treasury person, then we want a full fee. If we don’t find them you don’t pay us. We will do the work, but we take 100% of the risk for a full fee!
If we recruit a Treasurer at £200,000 or $300,000 they should be worth their fee if they can’t save their fee by:
- bank refinancing or savings through a new Treasury management system
- motivating the team and getting much more out of them in the first maybe three, six or at least within the first twelve months
Then probably you won’t want to recruit that person anyway!
SOLUTION 2 – RETAINED SEARCH
Retainer, Shortlist Fee, Completion
Client;
“Mike, let’s de-risk this process for both sides and I will retain you to find me a Treasury person, but I would appreciate some flexibility on the fee as I am committing exclusively to you.
What can we do? Can we work together on this?”
I am often able to show flexibility on the fee as you are trusting in me by retaining me and I will be able to dedicate time and paid research resource to the search as simply speaking you are paying for MY TIME.
I believe I can recruit the role and I want to work on it with you.
Usually, I will charge you one third of what the estimated fee will be at the beginning. You will be paying for my time.
Will I make loads of profit from the Retainer fee? No.
In most cases, we will not break even / make a profit until a Shortlist fee is paid. The profit for us as a recruitment business is in the COMPLETION fee.
We agree that I will charge you your Shortlist fee when I give you a shortlist that you love. When the person starts I charge you the COMPLETION FEE.
If my shortlist fails I don’t charge you, I find you a more suitable treasury professional.
If the person doesn’t start I don’t charge you I go back to a shortlist stage and find you more great candidates.
So, RETAINED SEARCH – Mike what’s your record?
I have a 100% RECORD OF RETAINED SEARCHES over the past 20 years.
That’s some record!
Yep, 100%…
Sorry, what does that mean to me as a client?
That means I know you will work and work and work to find you the right person?
Have I lost money working on retained searches in the past?
Yes – I have!
Why?
Because I have never failed over the past 20 years and I don’t intend to start NOW!
I will charge;
- 1/3rd at the beginning as a Retainer
- 1/3rd upon presentation of Shortlist
- 1/3rd upon Completion i.e. when the person starts with you
Maybe you have been burnt by recruiters who charged but they did not deliver results!
How about we combine both approaches and meet in the middle?
SOLUTION THREE – STAGED SEARCH
Retainer, Completion Fee
As before I charge you a retainer, this will pay for some of my time.
- 1/3rd at the beginning as a Retainer
- 2/3rd’s upon Completion i.e. when the person starts with you
The overall fee will be lower than the CONTINGENT APPROACH where I took all the risk, but it will be higher than my RETAINED SEARCH fee as the risk is higher.
We meet in the middle.
I only charge you the final 2/3rd’s of the fee upon completion of the assignment – remember as I haven’t recruited the role I am going to lose money.
I am betting on the fact that I can find you that right person.
You will have paid for some of my time and not been burnt in the process.
I have tried to create what I believe is a “win-win situation” for you as a client and me as a recruiter.
Believe me, I am incentivized to recruit the role – I’m not in business to lose money.
I hope this explanation gave you a deeper insight into what we do for our clients.
If you are a candidate you gained an insight into the world we live in and recruit within.
Maybe next time you are recruiting we can have a sensible open chat about what approach suits you best? I want to recruit your next Treasury professional. That is why I am here. If you are a potential client or candidate – please call me, we would love to help!
