Flat fee recruiters
Published: November 3rd, 2011 in the Online Recruitment Basics.
Flat fee recruiters are an increasingly popular online recruitment service for employers, offering many of the advantages of online recruitment with the benefits of a recruitment consultant.
What is a Flat Fee Recruiter?
A Flat Fee Recruiters is a hybrid recruiter offering the services of a recruitment consultant and a job board. Flat Fee Recruiters advertised jobs for the client on job boards and then, like a traditional recruiter, manage the candidate screening and short-listing process. And rather than a placement fee the online recruiter charges an one off flat advertising fee – hence the term “Flat Fee Recruiters.”
Because of their established relationships with the job boards and the volume of advertising they place with job boards, Flat Fee Recruiters can offer a very competitively-priced product. Typically, Flat Fee Recruiters charge between £200 and £600 for their service. The difference in price is often the result of the choice of job boards. Better job boards will result in Flat Fee Recruiters charging higher prices.
And this, perhaps, is where there may be certain constraints on the effectiveness of Flat Fee Recruiters. While straight-forward jobs may be easy to fill by advertising on the small number of popular websites and job board aggregators that many flat fee recruiters use, more complex and senior roles will require real recruitment advertising investment. Unfortunately, as the Flat Fee Recruitment model is dependent on low cost advertising, complex or difficult hires may offer significant challenges for some “Flat Fee Recruiters.”
That being said, there are plenty of quality operators who can adapt and change their campaigns depending on the requirements. As in all things online, talk to your flat fee recruiter to find out exactly what they offer and can deliver.
Next steps? Check out these other guides and articles:
- An introduction to Applicant Tracking Systems
- What is Job Posting Software?
- An Introduction to CV Databases
- Active and Passive Candidates
- An Introduction to Online Recruitment
