Revenue streams for recruiters do not have to stop at the standard fee.
Various revenue streams for recruiters
While many recruitment companies still simply stick to the contingency-based fee structure on placing a candidate at a client company, others are embracing the changing recruitment landscape and introducing a rate card of sorts, offering literally any service that ties in with recruitment somehow. Here are some of them and how recruiters can earn more for doing so much more for clients.
Shortlisting
Shortlisting has been discussed at length in another post, and is definitely a very good method to secure more clients who either cannot afford the usual fee structure or who wish to handle most of the recruitment process themselves. Instead of not offering shortlisting, and not picking up these clients, listen to what they want and offer it. Or create a sliding scale offering depending on how far down the process a client wants to go (don’t make it too complicated though).
Bear in mind that the less you do, the less risk you have, as things usually go wrong in placing a candidate after the first interview.
Recruitment consulting and advert writing
Some companies just don’t know what to do about recruitment – the process, what they need, how to find it, how to interview, and so on. Since you as a recruiter do, you can put together a series of sessions and charge your time to present them.
Companies also don’t know how to write online job advertisements, something I have researched very closely and written about in my MBA thesis. In general, the more information given to candidates viewing the job advert, the better it is, since they need to know if it is worth applying to. However, there are many other facets to writing a good online job ad and these are hopefully things you as a recruiter know about and can train clients on. Some recruiters even help clients write their job descriptions.
Hiring out recruiters
If you run a recruitment consultancy or agency with a number of recruiters, consider hiring them out to work in client companies. You can still charge a fee per placement, perhaps less, but your placements will be guaranteed and you will form a very close bond with the client in question.
What’s more, the client may become happily reliant and contract your employee as a fixed person, which allows you access to a comfortable base revenue. With success in this arena, you could pick up more clients like this.
Interview training
As above, companies do not always know how to choose the right candidates. This could involve some psychometric testing or simply training the client on how to interview job seekers properly to ascertain what they need to know. Most interviews also follow a set format and must contain certain questions and not involve others – teaching your clients how to do all this in as short a time as possible is extremely valuable.
To end off, it is worth saying that one can always charge a fee for something that has value. What you as a recruiter or recruitment company do is much more than just placing candidates and therefore you should look at various revenue streams for recruiters in your firm.
