For a long time, recruiting worked one way. You hired a recruiter. They filled the role. You paid a fee at the end. Simple, right?
Not really.
That model sounds fair. But it puts a lot of stress on both sides. And that stress shows up in the relationship long before anyone signs an offer letter.
Here is what the old way actually looks like in practice. And here is what we do instead.
The Problem With Paying at the End
When a recruiter works on your role and you pay nothing until it is filled, both sides are carrying risk. But the risk is not equal.
The recruiter has already spent weeks calling people, screening resumes, and running down leads. They have real costs. Time. Phone calls. Research. If the search falls apart for any reason, they get nothing.
So what happens? The recruiter hedges. They take on five searches at once to spread the risk. They move fastest on the roles most likely to close. Your hard-to-fill role gets less attention.
You are not their priority. You are their backup plan.
On the client side, the problem is different. You have no real stake in the process. No money has changed hands. So when a shortlist comes in and you are busy, it is easy to push back the review. Easy to go quiet. Easy to restart the whole thing six weeks later.
The recruiter has nothing to hold them accountable to you. And you have nothing holding you accountable to the search.
That is not a partnership. That is two people hoping the other one shows up.
What a Big Bill at the End Actually Does to the Relationship
Think about any service you have ever paid for after the fact. You were not part of the process. You just saw the result. And the result came with a large invoice.
Did that feel good?
When a company gets a recruiting fee invoice for $14,000 or $26,000 at the end of a search, the first reaction is often sticker shock. Even if they agreed to the fee up front, the size of it lands differently when it is real. Suddenly they are looking at the work. Wondering what they paid for. Questioning whether the fee was worth it.
That doubt damages the relationship. Even when the placement was great.
It also puts the recruiter in a tough spot. They did the work. The work was good. But now they have to justify the invoice instead of celebrating the hire.
A single large fee at the end is the wrong structure for building a long-term relationship with a client. It turns a good outcome into a negotiation.
How We Do It Now
We built two ways to work together, and an add-on menu that makes extra services easy to ask for and easy to price.
Move 1: Search Deposit
This is still transactional. You have one specific role. We fill it. The engagement ends when the hire is made.
But it starts with a deposit.
The deposit is 20% of the estimated placement fee. For a $70,000 role, that is $2,800. For a $120,000 role, it is $5,280.
You have two business days to cancel for a full refund. After the intake call and five business days of work, the deposit becomes non-refundable. At that point, work has been done. The deposit covers that work.
When we make the hire, the deposit is credited against the full fee. You pay only the balance.
If we fail to deliver a shortlist within the agreed window (15 business days for standard roles, 20 for senior and executive), the deposit is refunded in full. No questions asked.
Why does this work better?
Because now both sides have skin in the game. You have paid to start. We are accountable to deliver. The relationship has structure from day one instead of ambiguity from the beginning to a surprise invoice at the end.
Move 2: Outsourced Talent Partner
This one is for companies that hire more than once a year and want a recruiting partner, not a vendor.
You pay a monthly retainer. We become your recruiting team. When a role opens, we start the same day. No deposit. No intake delay. No contract to negotiate.
The retainer also earns a lower placement fee. Move 1 runs at 20 to 25%. Move 2 runs at 15% for Tier 1 and Tier 2 clients, and 12 to 15% for Tier 3.
The retainer tiers work like this:
Tier 1 (On Retainer): $1,200 to $1,500 per month. Best for companies with 51 to 150 employees and 1 to 3 hires expected per year. Includes a monthly advisory call, JD review, comp benchmarking, and same-day search start with no deposit.
Tier 2 (Growth Partner): $2,000 to $2,500 per month. Best for companies with 150 to 400 employees and 4 to 8 hires per year. Everything in Tier 1, plus a warm pipeline kept for up to 3 key roles, a quarterly talent planning call, and interview structure advisory on every search.
Tier 3 (Embedded Partner): $3,500 to $5,000 per month. Best for companies with 400 or more employees or 8 or more hires per year. Unlimited active searches, monthly written pipeline reports, formal delivery SLAs, and an annual talent strategy session.
The math makes sense past 3 hires per year. At 6 hires annually with an average salary of $90,000, Move 1 costs about $113,400 in placement fees. Move 2 at Tier 1 costs about $99,000 total. That is $14,400 saved on fees alone, before you count advisory access, the warm bench, and no-deposit convenience.
But the bigger value is not the math. It is the relationship.
When we are your recruiting team on an ongoing basis, we know your company. We know what good looks like for you. We are monitoring the market between searches. When a role opens, we are not starting from zero. We are already close to done.
That is not a transaction. That is a partnership.
The Add-On Menu
We already do these things on almost every search. Now they have a price and a clear trigger point.
Job description audits. Comp benchmarking. Offer strategy sessions. Reference check reports. Counter-offer playbooks. Competitor talent maps. And a 90-day placement check-in to catch early retention risk before it becomes a real problem.
Some of these are included for Outsourced Talent Partner clients. The rest are available on any engagement at a set price. Add-on fees are credited against the placement fee where noted.
No surprises. No guessing. Just a clear menu.
Why This Is Better for Both Sides
The old model rewarded completion. Get to the end, collect the fee, close the file.
The new model rewards the relationship. The deposit means we are both committed from the start. The retainer means the relationship does not end when the search does. The add-on menu means you can get more value from every engagement without negotiating from scratch each time.
You know what things cost before they happen. You know what you are getting at each stage. And you know that if we miss our delivery window, you get your money back.
That is a different kind of recruiting relationship. We think it is the right one.
Want to know which option fits your situation? Tell us about the role or the hiring need. We will give you a straight answer.
Contact Steven or visit stevencardwell.com to get started.