$50K Fee Reigns Supreme as Largest Split of the Month
Ah, March represents many a thing, not the least of which is the beginning of the spring season, which can fill a person with hope.
Do you know what else can fill a person with hope?
Large placement fees, that’s what. The larger the fee, the larger the hope.
And we have some large placement fees in this issue of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog. In fact, we have the largest split fees in TE Network for the month of March.
This includes, of course, the Largest Split Fee of the Month. Accounting for that fee were Russ Hovendick of Client Staffing Solutions, Inc. and Steve Kohn of Affinity Executive Search, Inc.
Russ and Steve placed a Plant Manager to earn a split recruiting fee of $50,000 at 25%. And yes, I believe $50K can buy a fair amount of hope . . .
As a friendly reminder, Top Echelon determines the monthly and quarterly winners of its TE Network split fee recruiting awards in four distinct categories:
1.) Recruiter of the Month
2.) Largest Split Fee of the Month
3.) Recruiter of the Quarter
4.) Largest Split Fee of the Quarter
We only announce the winners of these awards in The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog. We do so usually (but not always) in the issue following the conclusion of each month and/or quarter.
So congratulations to everybody on the list below for scoring some BIG placement fees during the month!
Largest Split Placement Fees – March 2026
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First Place:
Russ Hovendick of Client Staffing Solutions, Inc. and Steve Kohn of Affinity Executive Search, Inc.
The position for this split placement was a Plant Manager and the fee percentage associated with this placement was 25%.
Russ was the job order recruiter and Steve was the candidate recruiter.
The fee for this split placement was $50,000.
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Second Place:
Larry Basilone of Basilone Executive Search and Brad Dodge of iLocatum Recruiting
The position for this split placement was a Plant Manager and the fee percentage associated with this placement was 25%.
Larry was the job order recruiter and Brad was the candidate recruiter.
The fee for this split placement was $37,500.
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Third Place:
Gary Kaufman of ExcelliSearch, Inc. and Adam Pantelli of AJ Search
The position for this split placement was a Plant Director and the fee percentage associated with this placement was 18%.
Gary was the job order recruiter and Adam was the candidate recruiter.
The fee for this split placement was $36,900.
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Fourth Place:
Dan Trudeau of PRA USA and Alpana Kapur of Saba Talent
The position for this split placement was a Principal Software Engineer – Computer Vision and the fee percentage associated with this placement was 20%.
Dan was the job order recruiter and Alpana was the candidate recruiter.
The fee for this split placement was $30,400.
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Fifth Place:
Keith Cornelison of Personnel Resources and Laurie Harney of PTF Consulting, LLC
The position for this split placement was an AI Technical Architect – Senior AI Engineer and the fee percentage associated with this placement was 20%.
Keith was the job order recruiter and Laurie was the candidate recruiter.
The fee for this split placement was $27,872.
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If YOU want to make more money through Top Echelon’s recruiting network, then contact Director of Network Operations Drea Codispoti, CPC/CERS.
You can reach Drea by calling 330.595.1742 or by sending an email to drea@topechelon.com.










