The Job Search Solution
The Differnce Between a Retained and Contingency Search Consultants Part I
Dave Perry Interview with Dave Perry: Dave discusses the difference between a retained search consultant and a contingency search consultant.
Welcome. This podcast is sponsored by the jobsearchsolution.com. America is only 60 hour program of everything you could possibly imagine about how to find a job. The jobsearchsolution.com has successfully helped more than 100,000 people find a job as fast as possible. The jobsearchsolution.com. Welcome back and as we do every Tuesday, we'd like to welcome David Perry. He is the founder and manager and owner of Perry Martel International. It is a retained search firm. He's been in the business for 36, 37 years. They work out of Ontario, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He's one of the most famous retained search recruiters in the world. He's published more than nine books and got a number of products that are oriented to the search business. He's always a pleasure to have on the program because he's a dog on sharp about everything. As long as we're at it, David, I don't know that we've ever asked this and not won't catch you off guard, but tell us the difference between a retained search organization like yours and a contingency search organization like ours. Great question. Do you want me to answer that question from the standpoint of a candidate? No. From the standpoint of a client or a potential client? Okay. Well, the major differences are when your on-retainer client company has paid you a sum of money to execute a project and find the best candidate. Not necessarily the best candidate available folks, but the best candidate. When you're on contingency, they have essentially said, because I've worked continuously, and I'm simplifying this, but they've essentially said, "Okay, you'll find me a blonde, blue-eyed, left-handed programmer who wears red shoes." I'll interview them. If I hire them, I'll pay you. That's pretty close to me. Not right. So, you know, those are the major differences. For candidates, what you need to understand is two things, right out of the gate. Recruiters are paid by companies, and it doesn't come out of your pay packet in any way, shape, or form. When a company decides to use a recruiter, they put a sum of money aside to pay for the work, whether it's retained or contested. And that's the biggest thing most people don't understand. Going through a recruiter costs you absolutely nothing. When a retained recruiter calls you and asks you questions, just answer them. They're asking you questions for a specific reason. When a contingency recruiting firm calls you and asks you questions, you ask them a couple of questions first. Pay. Are you a retainer or a contingency? You, as a candidate, want to know. If you're a retainer, someone's paid, if a recruiter is a retainer, someone's paid them to do the job, and they alone are working on the job. If they're on contingency, then that means that they're going to get paid if they place someone. So, they're on the clock, and they may well be competing, oftentimes they are, with one or more, sometimes as many as half a dozen, recruiters are the recruiting firms to find the ideal candidate so they get paid. So, when they ask you a question, ask them that. And if it's on contingency, then you ask them the next question. Have you ever worked for this client before? Important folks. Yes. Important. I mean, Tony's got clients that go back to Moses. Okay, but anyway, the reason you want to know is because they're going to ask you some questions, but there are five other companies that are going to call you at the same day for the same opportunity. And if Tony's case, if they've worked with the client before, they know precisely what they're looking for and what the fit needs to be to make the candidate they hire successful in that organization. So, by your retainer or contingency, if they're on contingency, have you worked with this client before? If they say no, it's not a knockout, the next question is, have you ever placed someone like me before? That's the killer question. You want to work with contingency firms that are used to recruiting and placing people with your background because they understand the nuances of the job and understand the nuances of what the employer is likely working for. So, those are the differences in my mind, Tony, between retained and contingency. What would you add to that? I would add that the retained search firm has 99 out of 100 times an exclusive on the search. They've worked with the firm that they are retained by often times, almost all the time, they've worked with them before. They're going to find the right person. They're usually in a fairly narrow group of if maybe one, two, maybe three niches of verticals that they've worked in before. They have worked in that context of that vertical so many times they know the vast majority of people that are in that vertical and they go after them and they will look for them. They'll talk to them. They'll get referrals by them. They just do a real thorough job. Sometimes our candidates will overlap, but oftentimes they will not. Most of the time they will not. The contingency side of things, the employer will, if you find this right person guy or gal, we'll pay it. We might be serious about our search. We may not be serious about it. It depends on who you come up with at the time. If a retained search organization has got it, somebody like David's got it, they are serious about it. They've paid money upfront to get it done. They're going to get it done. You can bet your bottom dollar. They're not a casual looker. They're much more serious about their need for someone. They have a drop dead date and they're more of a more determined to find somebody. That's why they've retained David to do it. The perspective of the hiring authority and the hiring organization is quite a bit different. It matters because of the perspective that the organization has, which brings us to the perspective of we have to take a break and we'll be right back and we'll go to the discussion that we were going to start with to begin with before we got distracted by it. Stay tuned. This is Tony Beshear along with Dave Perry here on the Job Search Solution. This podcast was sponsored by the jobsearch solution.com. It's the world's most successful online job search program. My expert in the trenches advice has been used by more than 100,000 people to successfully find a new job. So go to the jobsearch solution.com and start today toward a better job.