How agency recruiters can sell retained searches

Always start with the retainer - though I actually call it an engagement fee, "Retainer" sounds scary.

If you hit a wall selling the engagement fee, you can still take the search on contingency - but strategically.

Stuck selling retainer? Try framing it like this:

I completely understand the hesitation around an engagement fee, especially since we haven’t worked together yet. That’s fair.

Here’s what I propose: we’ll take this search on contingency, but we’ll treat it exactly like an engaged search. We’ll show you the level of service, focus, and results you get when you work with us in an engaged model.

All I ask is that once we successfully fill this role and you’ve experienced how we work, the next search we do together is on an engaged basis. Does that sound fair?

Before you even get there, there are a few solid rebuttals worth using:

• “You wouldn’t give your accounting records to three different accounting firms and say ‘whoever finishes our taxes first gets paid.’ So why would you do that with a search firm?”
• “What other professional service works for free in hopes of getting paid? You don’t expect that from your accountant, your lawyer, or a business consultant - recruiting is no different.”
• “If you were building a deck, you wouldn’t call three contractors and say ‘whoever finishes first gets the job.’ Professional work requires commitment on both sides.”
• “Given the current employment market and low unemployment, we don’t work transactionally. We’re not looking for contingency-style volume work — we partner with companies that see us as an extension of their internal team.” (this one is perhaps irrelevant in the current climate, depending on the field)

This is a great post I come across some time ago, credit to whomever.