What You Need to Know, Part 1

Attention: this blog post is about Policy 11: Placement Fees, Payment Terms, Refunds, Fall-offs, and Guarantees and what it means to you as a Preferred Member of Top Echelon Network.

As a member of Top Echelon, it is vital for you to know all of the Network Policies and their effect on how you operate your business and relationships with your TE partners.

The happy side: getting paid!

I want to start with Policy #11 as it is about the money you make, keep, and in some cases . . . return.

Without pasting the entire text in this article, which is available in the link above, here is the situation when a placement is made between two Top Echelon members.

When the job recruiter is paid by the client, they are to send both Top Echelon our 6% brokerage fee and their trading partner their 47% fee within 24 hours of receiving the check. Sure, some banks hold on to the funds for a few days. Job recruiters should inform their partners of expected pay date specifics, their client’s internal processes, and bank holding periods. These are all extremely important to the conversation that TE members should have together.

The ugly side: the fall-off

According to the guarantee period and refund/replacement side of Policy #11, if the candidate falls off during the guarantee period, the job recruiter should notify their TE partner by phone and follow up with an email with the details of the fall-off. Then they must fill out the fall-off form and both Top Echelon and the candidate recruiter are required to refund their fees immediately and in their entirety.

What do you need to do about this? Be prepared. Any agency working in Top Echelon should have money set aside for such an instance.

Do fall-offs happen in Top Echelon Network? Absolutely. It’s part of the recruiting business, and therefore, a part of what occurs here in Top Echelon Network, which is why we have a specific policy for such instances, as well as a system for reporting them.

Ignorance of the law is never an excuse. Everybody is responsible for understanding these rules and their ramifications regarding how they/you operate here.

Not having the funds available to handle this situation is not acceptable and in poor form. What can you do to accommodate this in your desk as a member of Top Echelon Network?

Suggestions:

• Ask the job recruiter to hold on to the fee until after the guarantee period is over.
• Do not cash the check until after the guarantee period is over.
• Cash the check and put it in escrow until the guarantee period is over.
• Build up an escrow account of $10-20K for solely this type of a situation.

Regardless of what you do, be sure that you are prepared to be the best trading partner you can be by communicating, being active, showing yourself as a trusting partner, and being a quality professional. Be ready to handle any situation that arises, including the one described in this blog post. We want you to be the “best of the best” in this industry and set a benchmark for how recruiting partners are supposed to work together in a cooperative fashion.

I am proud to have been here so long and to have watched so many Preferred Members thrive in business because of their understanding of how to be the best trading partners in Top Echelon Network.