The Vault: 3 Keys to Being a Great Split Recruiter

(Editor’s note: Recruiting agency R.A. Briones & Company is celebrating its 23rd anniversary as a member of Top Echelon Network during the month of October. As a result, we thought it would be a good time to revisit an email that the Robert Briones of R.A. Briones & Company sent to us a few years ago “to convey the message of what it takes to make placements in this network on a consistent basis.” Robert was inspired by the success he had making split placements with his trading partners.)

— — —

I began writing this to highlight the incredible job that Sean Napoles did for me in recruiting top-notch candidates that were presented, interviewed, and hired within two weeks each, for four different positions in the last four months, ($87,750 in fees so far).

Now I’m seeing a pattern that is worth noting. I’ve made similar placements with individual recruiters: Suzanne Griffith (five placements) and Ken Stackowski (no longer in the Network, but we made four placements).  I was on the candidate side with Suzanne and Ken.  With Sean, I happened to have the client.

Common to all of these placements are the same critical factors preached by pretty much all the industry trainers we listen to at our conferences. (I attend conferences and industry training, by the way.)

Three keys to being a great split recruiter include the following:

1.) A solid job order with well-defined criteria, a sense of urgency, a responsive client, and salary ranges within the market.

2.) Communication with someone who understands the market in which the candidates are located, can recruit them, qualify them correctly, and present them to you with all the information you need to move forward quickly and efficiently.

3.) Follow-through from the recruiter with the job. Talk to the candidates, re-qualify them, present with all the necessary information, stay on top of the process and the client, prep the candidates, and work through the offer and counter-offer scenarios and resignation through to candidate employment starts.

Some of these steps may sound simplistic, redundant, or unfortunately to some, unnecessary. Placements can happen and DO happen without some of these things. However, I point to the frequency, the timespan for each, and the volume.

Sean has a vast grasp of his IT niche. He knew what was needed, and in some cases, provided me with additional questions to ask of my client. The candidates he recruited and referred to me were dead-on. He had qualified them and provided a summary of their skills to the job criteria, and they were ready for me to proceed with the process. He did everything I asked for, in addition to help and follow-up, promptly. He was available to tweak the criteria we were recruiting to and be responsive to it.

Now from my side of it, I had a client with a sense of urgency, so I made a pitch for a higher fee. This is a long-term client of mine. I have discounted the fee and used a flexible invoice and payment format with them. Where I normally charge 20%, I proposed that since I would use the Network for broader resources, the fee would be 30% since I would be splitting it with another recruiter.

As I said, I began this letter to give props to Sean for doing a great job and making us some money: $87,750. However, I now see that hopefully it can provide us all with some case studies so that we can better take advantage of what the Network has to offer.

After the fact, I can see that the hit-and-miss placements are fine. I can average a placement every two years or so. It pays my monthly TE fees and then some. Regular communication with other recruiters who can use the type of candidates I identify for them has also been a great source of income for me.

But the real money for me has been when I team up with another recruiter and we commit to providing an on-target solution for our client.

If I’m on the client side: I provide a strong job with good criteria and a good salary, hopefully with a higher-than-usual fee.

If I’m on the candidate side: I provide a fully qualified candidate that matches the job description, matches the salary range with reasonable expectations, and is truly interested in that specific opportunity.

Like I said at the beginning: this is nothing but the basics that we’ve heard from all the industry trainers!