If you are looking to hire new talent, working with a recruitment agency may be the best option to find the right candidate for your team. Most recruitment agencies work in two ways – contingency and retained.

But what is the difference between the two?

What is Contingency Recruitment?

Contingency is sometimes described as ‘no win, no fee’. Contingency recruitment is a type of recruitment in which the agency only gets paid after a candidate is successfully placed in a role. Recruiters who work on this basis are frequently up against the client’s internal HR department, advertising, direct applicants, and one or more other recruitment firms.

Benefits of Contingency Recruitment

No upfront cost

You do not have to pay anything until you find the right candidate. This means that contingency recruiters search for free and get paid for the results.

Quick turnaround

Contingency recruitment firms will try to find you the right candidate as quickly as possible, as they have to compete with many other recruiters who are also working with you. The recruiter who presents the best candidate in the shortest amount of time gets paid.

No long-term contracts

Contingency recruiters work with you on a project-by-project basis. They don’t expect or require you to sign a long-term contract. They will take on all of the risks associated with the hiring process and you won’t have to pay anything if they don’t find you the right person.

What is Retained Recruitment?

Clients pay a portion of the fee to the agency before the recruitment process begins, which is known as retained recruitment. The remaining portion of the fee is split between the recruitment search and the candidate’s successful placement. The agency will work on an exclusive basis, which means that the job will only be filled by this recruitment agency.

Benefits of Retained Recruitment

Prioritised Job Searches

With contingency recruitment, some recruiters may send candidates to multiple clients they are working with. Retained recruitment leads to a recruitment agency being laser-focused on searching for the right candidate for your role, as they feel a greater responsibility to do so. If you’re an employer looking to fill a vacancy, you don’t want recruiters sending you candidates who are already interviewing elsewhere.

Maintain brand integrity

Retained recruitment also has the advantage of preserving the integrity of your brand and ensuring that your company is always portrayed in a positive light. You may lose control of how your company is portrayed if you have multiple recruitment agencies searching for candidates for your company, whereas the more focused and personal nature of retained recruitment means the agency will have your business and brand’s best interests at heart.

Greater Commitment

As an employer, you’ll benefit from a stronger commitment because of the nature of the retained recruitment agreement, in which a recruitment agency is solely responsible for finding the best candidate to fill a position. When multiple recruitment agencies are working to find a placement through contingency recruitment, it’s easy for one of them to “walk away” if things get too complicated.

Overcome common hiring challenges by getting a specialist Digital Recruitment team on the case. Herd Digital is a recruitment partner to businesses in the UK and across Europe, offering an efficient and streamlined hiring process that gets you first access to the industry’s most skilled professionals.

To start a chat about any of your available vacancies, just call us on 0208 629 6006 or send us a message online.