What does this mean? Hiring a recruiter on an exclusive basis means just this – you choose one recruiting firm for your assignment and this firm, normally within a reasonable time-frame, has the mandate to find your number 1 choice for the position. Recruiters working on a contingency search compete against a number of other companies and whoever first produces the resume of the person who is ultimately hired wins. It is all or nothing.

So what are the advantages of giving this exclusivity to a headhunter?

1. It gives the recruiting company the time it needs to set up the search properly.

2. With contingency it is a race against time so there is no time to find the talented people who are not looking but must be discovered / cold called / “recruited” from their parent company. Contingency forces companies to submit often partially qualified candidates before anyone else does. If they take the time to schedule appointments to talk, and soul-search, other companies will call them, or even worse, but common, submit their resumes if they come across them, without calling at all.

3. Contingency Methodology – standard – quick – search database, do some advertising, look through boards, not enough time to be thorough and contact people who like their jobs and are not looking. This does not mean that they will not find a good candidate – it just means that it is harder to be organized, list your competitors, call their people, etc.

4. Focus on getting potentially qualified candidates rather than A players due to race with competition

5. In general, emphasis ends up being on speed not quality, due to circumstances

6. Exclusive basis – would recommend 3 to 5 highly qualified candidates – recruiters do the screening – on contingency, the employer ends up screening multiple candidates from all over and doing the QC.

7. Your firm is better represented if candidates get one message, not many, from many firms.

8. Becomes a top priority search for the recruiter firm in terms of time and effort.

9. The recruiter firm ensure that the whole process is complete and successful – follow through right to the end, even into the first weeks of employment.