There’s nothing we at Top Echelon like more than big, fat split placement fees. Mainly because there’s nothing that our Network recruiters like more than big fat split fees.

Well, here’s the good news: we had plenty of such fees in the Network during 2016. As proof of this, below are the top 10 largest fees of the year in Top Echelon Network.

You probably aren’t surprised by the placement at the top of the list. We’ve chronicled the placement on at least two occasions (here and here). That was the placement between Ron Sunshine and Norma Wallis for $95,000.

That’s also the Largest Split Fee in the 29-year history of the Top Echelon recruiter network. I would say that it will never be broken, but never say never. Below are some other observations regarding this list:

• All of the placement fees are $40,000 or more.
• Three recruiters are part of more than one placement: Pamela Ratz DeVille, CPC; Mary Anne Buckley; and Diane Rothong.
• Diane Rothong was the job order recruiter in one of her placements and the candidate recruiter in the other placement. That’s versatility right there.

So please join us as we congratulate Ron Sunshine, Norma Wallis, and everybody else who made huge split fees in Top Echelon Network during 2016!

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Largest Split Fees of the Year
First Place:

Ron Sunshine

Norma Wallis

Ron Sunshine of Ron Sunshine Associates, LLC and Norma Wallis of LME Resources, LLC

The position for this split placement was a Vice President of Sales. Sunshine was the job order recruiter, and Wallis was the candidate recruiter.

The action that stimulated this split placement was listed as, “Offline communication with a member.”

The fee for this split placement was $95,000.

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Second Place:

Bob Wylan of R.A. Wylan & Co., Inc. (job order recruiter)
Gerald Brown of Technical Management Advisors (candidate recruiter)
Position Title: VP of Manufacturing Operations
Fee percentage: 25%
Split Fee: $51,250

Third Place:

Debbie Harper, CPC/CERS of Harper Hewes Executive Search & Recruiting (job order recruiter)
Gene McQueen of the Cameron Craig Group (candidate recruiter)
Position Title: Risk Advisory Principal
Fee percentage: 25%
Split Fee: $50,000

Fourth Place:

Mary Anne Buckley, CPC of Interstate Recruiters Corp of firm name (job order recruiter)
Diane Rothong of Worksource 2000, Inc. (candidate recruiter)
Position Title: Associated Director, Med Comm Intercontinental
Fee percentage: 25%
Split Fee: $48,750

Fifth Place:

Pamela Ratz DeVille, CPC of the MMS Group (job order recruiter)
Steve Kohn of Affinity Executive Search (candidate recruiter)
Position Title: SVP Finance
Fee percentage: 18%
Split Fee: $45,000

Sixth Place:

Diane Rothong of Worksource 2000, Inc. (job order recruiter)
Mark London of Command Consultants, Inc. (candidate recruiter)
Position Title: Regional Account Director
Fee percentage: 25%
Split Fee: $45,000

Seventh Place:

Mary Anne Buckley, CPC of Interstate Recruiters Corp of firm name (job order recruiter)
Stephanie McGinty of firm name (candidate recruiter)
Position Title: Associated Director, Oncology Medical Communications
Fee percentage: Flat
Split Fee: $42,875

Eighth Place:

Tim Piccini of Phillips Recruiting Services (job order recruiter)
Bob Millman of AutoPro Technical Recruiting (candidate recruiter)
Position Title: Director of Purchasing
Fee percentage: 20%
Split Fee: $42,000

Ninth Place:

Pamela Ratz DeVille, CPC of the MMS Group (job order recruiter)
Catherine Sousa of Morton Roper Careers  (candidate recruiter)
Position Title: Vice President of Contracting
Fee percentage: Flat
Split Fee: $41,800

Tenth Place:

Darrin Skinner of Howe & Associates (job order recruiter)
Trey Cameron of the Cameron Craig Group (candidate recruiter)
Position Title: AVP Managed Care Contracting
Fee percentage: 23%
Split Fee: $40,250

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Top Echelon determines the monthly, quarterly, and yearly winners of its Network recruiting awards in four distinct categories, which are listed below:

1.) Recruiter of the Month
2.) Largest Split Fee of the Month
3.) Recruiter of the Quarter
4.) Largest Split Fee of the Quarter

The winners of these awards are only announced in The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog, usually (but not always) in the issue following the conclusion of each month and/or quarter.

Everybody loves a good story. Recruiters especially love stories that end with a placement. More specifically, they like ones that end with a placement FEE.

Well, we have two such stories in this week’s issue of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog!

These stories share a number of different elements. Those elements include the following:

• Veterans of the recruiting profession
• Long-time members of Top Echelon Network
• A challenge and/or obstacle that occurred during the placement process
• A twist that makes the story unique
• The first split placement that each recruiter has made with the other!

The great thing about recruiting is that almost anything can happen at any time. (Some people might argue that’s also the worst thing about recruiting. Those people are wimpy.)

But on a serious note: we want your great split placement stories! If you have such a story and you’d like to share it with us, you can do two things.

First, share the story on the Completed Placement forms when you submit them. Second, email the story to marketing@topechelon.com.

Third, if you’re looking to make more split placements in TE, then contact Top Echelon Director of Network Operations Drea Codispoti, CPC/CERS. You can do so by calling 330.455.1433, x156 or by sending an email to drea@topechelon.com.

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Michael Stuck

Tom Heeney, CPC

“This placement was the epitome of teamwork. Tom had the original relationship with the client, who wanted a recruiter from Cleveland. That’s where we came in. I took over the client relationship, and within three weeks, we had a placement. It could not have went any smoother working with Tom. What a great team the two of us made in order to make this happen. I look forward to other [split placements] in the future with Tom. Thanks, Tom, for giving us the chance to work with your fabulous client.”

Submitted by Michael Stuck of the Gables Search Group regarding her Network split placement with Tom Heeney, CPC of Corporate Resources, LLC

Position Title—MARKETING ASSISTANT

Fee Percentage—25%

(Editor’s note: This is the first Network split placement that Stuck and Heeney have made together in Top Echelon.)

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Terry Rhodes

Rowe Henderson

“This placement was the result of a ‘fall-off’ from the SAME candidate. The candidate had previously accepted the offer, but pulled out the day before the start date due to several personal issues–spouse’s surgery, death of immediate family member, etc. Two weeks later, I asked the company if they would revisit the candidate if he was receptive. Thank goodness the candidate was receptive! He re-interviewed, and the company was very excited to move forward.”

Submitted by Rowe Henderson of Rowe Henderson & Associates regarding his Network split placement with Terry Rhodes of NewCareers

Position Title—QUALITY MANAGER

Fee Percentage—25%

(Editor’s note: This is the first Network split placement that Henderson and Rhodes have made together in Top Echelon.)

If you’re reading this, then you’re probably a Top Echelon Network member. You might also be a user of the Big Biller recruiting software. Even if you aren’t, you might be interested to know what Big Biller can do.

That’s why we’re introducing this “Did You Know?” series of articles in The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.

In this series, we’re going to point to out things that, well, you might not know. (Makes sense, does it not.) Accompanying each nugget of information will be a link to a Help Center article and/or video that explains the feature in more detail.

The first three features in our “Did You Know?” are listed below:

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Did You Know . . . About Customized Activity Types?

Did you know that you can mold Big Biller to work the way YOU work?

Customized activity types are an easy way for your firm to personalize the way you log and track what happens in in your database. The main user can create an activity for each step in your recruiting process, from first call to placement and everything in between. The best part: you can set these up to match your agency’s lingo and workflow.

Click HERE for a Help Center article about customized activity types and how they can help your firm!

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Did You Know . . . About the Power of BBNOTE?

Did you know that you can create a new record in Big Biller and capture the content of an email at the same time?

When using the email parser, make sure that BBNOTE is in the subject line of the email. This move “kills two birds with one stone,” so to speak, allowing you to add the content of the email to the notes of the record that you just created.

Click HERE for a Help Center article that illustrates the power of using BBNOTE in Big Biller.

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Did You Know . . . About Storing Social Media Profiles?

Do your candidates keep their LinkedIn profiles more up-to-date than their resumes?

Big Biller can assist you in finding a candidate (or client) on the major social media networks. Then the software will allow you to store their profile URL on their Resume Data Sheet (RDS) for quick and easy access in the future.

Click HERE for a Help Center article about how to store social media profiles with Big Biller!

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Check future issues of The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog for another installment of “Did You Know?”

And if you’re ready to see what the Big Biller recruiter software can do for your agency, then click here to sign up for a live demo!

In our previous Members’ Area poll blog post, we discussed whether or not Network recruiters are optimistic. This time around, we’re going to address whether or not they’re satisfied.

Their level of satisfaction with how optimistic they are? No, with their billings for last year. Unfortunately, we have no data on the correlation between Network recruiters’ levels of satisfaction and optimism.

But forget all of that for now. Below is the question that we recently posted in the Members’ Area:

How satisfied are you with your recruiting desk production for 2016 ?

The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of Network recruiters that selected each one:

• Highly satisfied — 21.3%
• Somewhat satisfied — 18.0%
• Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied — 12.4%
• Somewhat dissatisfied — 25.8%
• Highly dissatisfied — 22.5%

The satisfied divide

It would appear that, all in all, recruiters are more dissatisfied than satisfied when it comes to their recruiting desk production for 2016.

Exhibit A: The percentage of recruiters that indicated they’re “highly satisfied” was 21.3%. The percentage that indicated they’re “somewhat satisfied” was 18.0%. Put those together, and 39.3% of Network recruiters are satisfied to some extent about their 2016 production.

Exhibit B: The percentage of recruiters that indicated they’re “highly dissatisfied” was 22.5%. The percentage that indicated they’re “somewhat dissatisfied” was 25.8%. Put those together, and 48.3% of Network recruiters are dissatisfied to some extent about their 2016 production. That’s nearly half of everybody who participated in the poll.

Then there are those who are “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” (12.4%). It would be interesting to know if those recruiters have that attitude about 2016 only or if they have it every year.

What’s wrong with being dissatisfied?

Keep in mind that 2016 was NOT a bad year for Top Echelon recruiters, at least not in the Network. Overall, Network recruiters made 15% more placements than they did in 2015. That would make it the most number of placements that the Network has produced since the Great Recession.

So Network recruiters’ dissatisfaction might not depend as much on what the market is bearing as on their attitude about what they’re producing. Although they’re making plenty of placements (including split placements), they appear to have lofty goals and high expectations.

Actually, there are probably some recruiters who are never truly satisfied with their production. The truth be told, that is a-okay. That’s because there are worse things than being perpetually “hungry” on your recruiting desk. Having that kind of mindset is crucial if a recruiter wants to bill more year after year after year.

So perhaps the recruiter who is always dissatisfied with their production every year is the one who is ultimately satisfied by the end of their career.

If you’re dissatisfied with your production within the Network, then contact Top Echelon Director of Network Operations Drea Codispoti, CPC/CERS. You can do so by calling 330.455.1433, x156 or by sending an email to drea@topechelon.com.

What is your retirement plan?  If you own your own recruiting firm, you don’t have an employer contributing to a pension plan or 401(k), so all you have is Social Security, your own retirement savings, and your business.

But if you’re strictly a direct-hire firm, you may find that your business is not all that sell-able when it comes time to retire.  After all, direct-hire firms do not have a steady stream of revenue to attract buyers.  At best, you may have a client list to sell, but will that be enough to secure a comfortable retirement?

If contract staffing was part of your business model, you would actually have a sell-able business.  You would have active contractors working at clients, and those contractors would continually be generating income for your business.  Plus, because you would be in continuous touch with clients, your pipeline would be filling with even more new contract job orders.

That steady income makes a recruiting firm much more attractive to potential buyers.  Some recruiters have actually added contract staffing not so much because they need the extra income now, but as part of an overall exit strategy.

And in the meantime, they enjoy the following additional benefits of contract staffing:

• Increased sales
• Ability to become a sole-source provider to clients
• Contract-to-direct conversion fees
• Ability to overcome clients’ hiring freezes and budget constraints

It’s never too early to plan for retirement, so if you do not yet have an exit strategy in place, you may want to consider adding contracting . . . because contract staffing can help recruiters retire!

For more information, visit the Top Echelon Contracting website or call TEC at 888.627.3678.