I need some feedback from you who have worked on retainers.  How do you ask for a retainer?  How much do you ask for?  What additional fees do you expect when you have made a placement? Thanks!

....or...."I'm never going to do another search without a Retainer"

OK. I admit it. I can be a softie. Just sometimes.

I'm not sure how I let it happen, but I let a client convince me to take on a job without a retainer. Normally I get a…

In the current Global economic climate do Recruitment Agencies need to share the burden of the economic recovery and do more for less? Some would say they need to wake up to the fact that customers are no longer prepared to pay or afford the exorbitant fees they have enjoyed for many years. 

I was recently reflecting on our “high fees” as commented by a client in a one-on-one interview.  I pulled out the 2011 research report put out by the Talent Board entitled the Candidate Experience.  In addressing the channel by which Candidate learn about job postings and companies it was clear that the following three avenues are most consistently used by companies to communicate with job seekers:

1. The Career Site is the most consistently used channel for publishing information…

I consider myself to be extremely lucky.  I have had a long career as a recruitment consultant, manager and - most recently - company owner.  I am now in a unique position where I talk to recruitment people all day long… Don’t feel sorry for me – I kind of like it.  Some people like listening to East 17 cd’s… me?...  I like talking to recruitment people… and… listening to East 17 cd’s… sometimes at the same time…

Point is that quite often in our industry there is…

I was going to entitle this post Why Recruitment is like the Titanic… but I didn’t.  However, sometimes you do really feel like DiCaprio – you remember, the king of the world scene - standing on the bow of the ill-fated liner, fists pumped and happier than a pig in you know what.  But in the recruitment world you are always only one submerged iceberg away from disaster… in hindsight Why Recruitment is like the Titanic would have probably been a far more apt and…

This post originally appeared at www.sendouts.com.

Netflix is raising the…

Its not often I experience a first these days – I am after all the wrong side of 40! However, yesterday I was stunned into silence (This does not happen very often with me!) At our weekly ops meeting my colleague wanted to read out an email she had received from a client with whom we are on formal preferred supplier arrangement, regarding fees.

I have to confess that the prospect of listening to yet another set of excuses for driving down the…