You can’t find top passive candidates just lying around somewhere. After all, that’s why companies hire YOU, recruiters. They can’t find them, so they hire you to both find them and recruit them.

But sometimes, even you can’t find the candidates that your clients need and want. That’s when membership in a split fee recruiting network can help!

Access to top passive candidates is definitely part of the “Power of the Network.” The next installment in our series certainly illustrates that.

Top passive candidates = multiple offers

Bob Long of Executive Personnel Services and Trey Cameron of the Cameron Craig Group have made four placements together. In each of those placements, Trey provided a great candidate. That candidate helped Bob to make a placement with one of his clients that he might not have made otherwise.

In fact, as you can see by the comments below, the caliber of Trey’s candidates was instrumental to closing the deals in more way than one. One of the candidates even received three offers at the same time. When the candidate made their decision, it left one of Bob’s clients still in need of a great candidate.

Which, of course, presented another placement opportunity.

Recruiting passive candidates is much easier when you have access to them. Membership in Top Echelon’s recruiting network can provide that access. And where there’s access, there are placements.

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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Bob Long

Trey Cameron

“Trey, outstanding candidate! I brought her in and personally met with her. She followed all of the interview instructions and after four interviews and a Divine Inventory Assessment, we got her an offer more than she was expecting. She did an excellent job through a marathon of interviews most candidates would not have gone through. Thanks again for your help!”

Submitted by Bob Long of Executive Personnel Services regarding his Network split placement with Trey Cameron of the Cameron Craig Group

Position Title—SENIOR ACCOUNTANT

Fee Percentage—25%

(Editor’s note: This is the second Network split placement that Bob and Trey have made together in Top Echelon.)

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“Trey, thanks once again for coming up with an outstanding candidate. The candidate did an excellent job of interviewing and ended up getting three offers all at once. Fortunately, he took the offer with our client and everything worked out. I need another one just like him to satisfy one of the other companies that was not able to hire him.”

Submitted by Bob Long of Executive Personnel Services regarding his Network split placement with Trey Cameron of the Cameron Craig Group

Position Title—FINANCIAL REPORTING & PLANNING ANALYST

Fee Percentage—25%

(Editor’s note: This is the fourth Network split placement that Bob and Trey have made together in Top Echelon.)

One of the great things about Top Echelon’s recruiting network is that a recruiter can join and almost immediately “hit it off” with another member. Before you know it, they’re making split placements right and left. In other words, their Network relationship is hitting on all cylinders.

That’s the case with the relationship between Shree Kumar and Shelli Saunders. Shree joined our split network in January of this year. Saunders has been a member for the past few years.

Since January, Shree and Shelli have made four placements together. In fact, one of them was the Largest Split Fee of the Month for August! They made a split in excess of $44,000.

This is most definitely the beginning of a beautiful Top Echelon Network relationship. But wait . . . there’s more!

Anatomy of a Network relationship

There’s more money, specifically. The placement listed below represented a fee of $44,100. However, Shree and Shelli also made a placement at the end of August. That placement brought with it a fee of over $68,000!

Of course, that placement fee will not become official until everybody gets paid, as per Network policy. But if that candidate does not fall off and the placement goes through, Shree and Shelli could be in line for another award.

(We calculate the Largest Split Fee Award during the month that the placement closes. In other words, we calculate the award during the month that, once again, everybody gets paid.)

So in less than a year, Shree and Shelli have made four placements together and they’re close to making a fifth. Not only that, but they’ve also won at least one TE award from those placements and could win another.

The evidence is overwhelming. This is, indeed, the beginning—and continuation—of a beautiful Network relationship.

If you need help with your split recruiting efforts in TE, then contact 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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Largest Split Placement Fee for August:

Shree Kumar

Shelli Saunders

Shree Kumar of Max Populi, LLC and Shelli Saunders of The Recruiting Pro

The position for this split placement was an Ortho Physician Advisor. Shree was the job order recruiter and Shelli was the candidate recruiter.

The action that stimulated this split placement was listed as “Core Groups (Regional/Virtual).”

The fee for this split placement was $44,100.

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Top Echelon determines the monthly and quarterly winners of its Network split fee 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

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.

Every search consultant wants to increase their recruiter income. (That probably also means YOU.) Not only that, but it would also be nice if that income was more of a steady stream than a trickle with an occasional flood.

But how, exactly, do you accomplish that?

With contract staffing, that’s how! Or more specifically, by placing workers on a contract basis.

6 paths to more recruiter income

Below are six ways that placing contractors can increase a recruiter’s bottom line:

#1—Bypass companies dragging their feet with direct hires.

Instead of waiting the increasingly long time it takes hiring managers to extend a direct hire job offer to your candidates, you can offer them the quicker, less permanent (and therefore less nerve-wracking) solution of a W-2 contractor. This way, your candidate and your direct hire fee aren’t waiting around and you’re less likely to lose them both. After all, candidates are rejecting offers because they’ve already accepted another job. Hiring speed matters!

#2—Earn a consistent hourly fee for the duration of the contract placement.

The big checks from direct placements are great, but the long gaps in between them? Not so great. Contract placements generate recruiter income every single hour the contractor works. When you add contracting to your business, you will have a steadier stream of income. That means less dependency on “boom and bust” cycles.

#3—Have multiple contractors out at any given time.

This provides recruiter income for every hour the contractor works. Some recruiters think that contract placements don’t pay enough to make them worth their time. However, even just having a few contractors out at the same time can bring in a respectable total hourly income. The more contractors you place, the more your hourly income compounds.

#4—Earn a conversion fee in addition to hourly contract profit if contractors get hired directly.

Conversion fees can be the best of both worlds for recruiters. You get the hourly income for the length of the placement, PLUS a fee for the client to hire the contractor directly at the end of the contract! You can end up making even more than you would have if the candidate had been a direct hire from the start.

#5—If your contractor doesn’t work out, you don’t have to sacrifice income OR time.

Contract placements don’t tend to have the same guarantees attached to them as direct hire placements. It is understood by all parties that the placement has an end date and may not result in a direct hire. At worst, a recruiter may wind up having to find another contractor for a role if the first one didn’t work out. However, they won’t have to return the income they earned already (as some recruiters must do when a direct hire placement ends too early).

#6—Place the same contractor repeatedly and earn their direct hire fee many times over.

Even if you don’t earn a conversion fee on a contractor, you can end up with many times that amount over time by placing them in multiple assignments. This is a definite advantage of placing contingent workers. With direct hires, you only make a one-time fee.

Are YOU in need of contract staffing solutions or contract placement services?

Then download our Quick-Start Guide to Contract Staffing. Or request a demo with one of our contract staffing specialists.

We encourage you to see for yourself how easy it is. And we will be here to help you every step of the way. That’s why you can can also call us at (888) 627-3678.

Hiring is one of the hardest things companies have to do. If they have a recruiter like you, they can skip some of the hassles, such as sifting through hundreds of resumes. But in the end, the hiring decision is still theirs. How can they tell from an interview or two (or more) if someone is going to perform, has the skills they claim to have, and will be a cultural fit for the organization? What if they hire the wrong person?

The truth is, many times they end up regretting their hiring decision. So what is the cost of hiring the WRONG person?

Hiring the wrong person = regret

Well, there are the obvious financial costs. These include the recruiting fees, the cost of any ads they may have posted, relocation costs, drug and background screening costs, benefits contributions, and the payroll taxes paid by the company while the person was employed.

For clients who want to calculate the actual dollar amount of these and other tangible costs, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a non-profit organization in Washington, DC, has created a Turnover Calculator.

But there are many other, less obvious costs of hiring the wrong person, of which your clients may NOT be aware. They include the following:

• Time spent interviewing the candidate and checking references
• Time spent by the manager and other employees on training
• More time spent by HR on paperwork, benefits administration, and orientation
• Even MORE time spent by payroll to set up the new employee
• Loss of clients due to poor customer service
• Loss of employee morale if others have to pick up the slack for the under-performing hire

The contract-to-direct hire solution!

Most companies do their due diligence with multiple interviews, background checks, and reference checks. So what else can they do to avoid hiring the wrong person? One option is to hire employees on a contract-to-direct basis. That way, they can evaluate the candidate risk-free while he/she is performing the actual job.

You can help by providing candidates on a contract-to-direct basis. Then you can outsource their employment to a recruitment back-office.

The back-office will handle background checks and drug screenings. They will also handle all of the employee paperwork and administration during the trial period. They even offer the candidate benefits during the trial period. Not only that, but they will also be responsible for the payroll taxes during that time.

Best of all, if a company determines that someone isn’t working out, they won’t feel like they have to stick it out with the contract employee and continue to pour more time and money into trying to develop them. They can simply end the individual’s contract and try someone else!

Are YOU in need of contract staffing solutions or contract placement services?

Then download our Quick-Start Guide to Contract Staffing. Or request a demo with one of our contract staffing specialists.

We encourage you to see for yourself how easy it is. And we will be here to help you every step of the way. That’s why you can can also call us at (888) 627-3678.

Recruiting is full of frustrations. Anybody who’s been in the profession for longer than a day can tell you that.

However, there is a certain ebb and flow to these frustrations. Some appear in a certain market, while others are prevalent in a different market.

Right now, there’s no doubt that we’re in a candidates’ market. (Just ask any candidate, they’ll tell you.) So what’s been happening to members of Top Echelon’s recruiter network in this candidates’ market? I’m glad you asked.

We have a pair of Members’ Area poll questions to get to the bottom of this!

How many fall-offs have you experienced in the past 12 months?

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

• None! — 37.1%
• One or two — 36.0%
• Three or four — 16.9%
• Five or six — 6.7%
• Seven or eight — 0.0%
• More than eight — 3.4%

And then on the heels of that question, we asked THIS one:

How many of your candidates have accepted a counteroffer in the past 12 months?

The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of split fee recruiting network members that selected each one:

• None! — 42.9%
• One or two — 42.9%
• Three or four — 7.9%
• Five or six — 0.0%
• Seven or eight — 0.0%
• More than eight — 6.3%

Observations about frustrations

There’s actually plenty of good news with such dismal topics! That’s because quite a few recruiters have not had ANY fall-offs (37.1%) or counteroffer problems (42.9%) in the past 12 months.

In addition, a sizeable percentage of respondents only experienced “one or two” in each category. The distribution was 36.0% for fall-offs and 42.9% for counteroffers.

Now let’s swing around to the other end of the spectrum. There were recruiters who have experienced “more than eight” fall-offs and/or counteroffers during the past 12 months. They weren’t huge percentages, to be sure, at 3.4% and 6.3%, respectively. But they weren’t minuscule, either.

Then there’s the issue of which of the frustrations has been more prevalent. From that perspective, it appears as though fall-offs is the winner. (If you want to call it “winning.) Based upon the results of this poll, fall-offs happen more frequently than candidates accepting a counter-offer from their current employer.

But as far as which of these frustrations is more irritating to recruiters? That is perhaps a poll question for another time and place.

Looking to maximize your membership in Top Echelon’s recruiting network and make more split placements?

Then contact 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.