Flat fee recruitment: What? Why? How?

Recruitment can simultaneously be the most enjoyable and stressful aspect of running a business. Reading through CV’s, organising interviews, meeting candidates and ultimately finding the right people who will get the job done whilst fitting into the company culture. It takes a creative, knowledgeable and patient professional to get it right.

For these types of professionals, time is a precious resource and finding smart ways to save it, whilst still doing the job to a high standard is a challenge that many of them face every day.

In this article we introduce you to flat fee recruitment. A concept that has worked to save many organisations time, money and resources in finding the best candidates for the job.

What is flat fee recruitment?

Flat fee recruitment is much how it sounds. Unlike traditional recruitment where organisations work with agencies on an hourly percentage fee based on successful candidate salary, flat fee is just that – you pay one fee and receive the full range of professional services as a result.

Recruiters who work on a flat fee basis will provide a number of pre-agreed services to make sure that your job ad gets maximum coverage. They will start by creating you an expert job advert including the use of specific keywords which will help the right candidates find and be attracted to your job. This is so important as it ensures that only those best suited and most interested in the role will apply for the role.

These ads will then be posted across a number of job boards. For example, in the case of eRecruitSmart this includes leading industry boards as well as reaching up to 10 million UK job seekers on Monster, CV library, Reed and Total Jobs.

Applications for these jobs are then screened to shortlist only those that meet your detailed criteria and sent on to you for review and following up. So, much like traditional recruitment you end up with a list of qualified and filtered CVs except you pay just one flat fee.

Why will it benefit me?

The obvious benefit of flat fee recruitment is financial. Not only is flat fee usually substantially cheaper than recruiting via an agency, but it also allows businesses to know exactly how much a new hire will cost them and plan that into their overall budget.

For example, if a new hire was taken on at an agreed £25,000 salary and the agency was charging the usual industry 15% fee on that, the overall cost of one new hire would cost you £3750. The same hire made via flat fee recruitment could cost you as little as £195. If you then multiply that by how many new hires you make a year flat fee service could save your business a vast amount of money.

Given the way in which flat fee works means that your recruiters main goal is to find you the best candidate at the most competitive salary. This ensures that you have the best experience possible and will return to use them again when you have a new vacancy to fill.

With agencies usually charging a percentage of the candidates agreed final pay, they tend to promote the candidates that are likely to demand the highest salary and not those best suited for the job.

Using a flat fee recruiter also enables massive reach. Where agency recruiters tend to tap into a smaller circle of experts, flat fee focuses on getting a greater reach. We have already mentioned that the job boards we at eRecruitSmart use can reach up to 10 million UK job seekers, meaning you have the best chance of reaching those that will benefit your business the most.

Finally, the CV’s you receive are also not restricted in any way. This means that you can use them to fill other similar roles in the future if needs be, further saving you money and time.

How should I be using it?

Using flat fee recruitment is easier than you may think. All you need to do is find an established and trusted provider, just like eRecruitSmart (wink, wink).

But in all seriousness, flat fee isn’t always good.

Some recruiters see it as an excuse to make money and deliver little in the way of results. By working with a business that has an excellent track record and prides themselves on the repeat custom they receive you will mitigate the risk of being caught out by this.

Look for excellent reviews, awards and an inwards investment in people when picking your flat fee provider.

Is it better than other types of recruitment?

All types of recruitment have the pros and cons.

Having worked in various recruitment businesses we genuinely believe that flat fee recruitment facilitates the best relationships between recruiter and client as well as providing huge cost savings and better transparency.

Agencies often run on culture for making as much money as possible. Flat fee facilitates a culture that puts the customer first.

Can I use it alongside my current recruitment process?

By taking a flexible approach, flat fee recruitment can work seamlessly alongside your current recruitment process, providing benefits across the board.

In fact, by supplying smart software that allows you to tag, track and monitor candidate CVs and progression flat fee recruitment can work hand in hand with agency and in house recruitment to bring you the benefits of both methods. This means you get the best candidates without the need to pick between the way in which your find them.

We can see that flat fee recruitment is a great way for businesses to save time, costs and resources throughout their recruitment process. By adopting this method you can tap into a vast range of potential job seekers and find the best candidates for your vacancy. It can easily be integrated into your business and fits into your current recruitment process giving you the best of agency, internal and flat fee all at once.