Question of the day: When do you walk away from a contingency search?

Today's Question of the Day was submitted by the RBC's John Kreiss: when do you walk away from a contingency search?

If you have a question that you’d like to submit feel free to contact me directly.

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Permalink Reply by Ron Webb on January 26, 2012 at 10:20am

1.) Unreasonable compensation, according to industry standards, for the position 2.) poor, inconsistent feedback after resume(s) submitted or after interviews 3.) communicating with candidate without keeping me in the loop 4.) when they tell me they are interviewing internal candidates 5.) attempts to renegotiate the contract terms after signed and resumes submitted.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Grove on January 26, 2012 at 10:35am

I don't work in contingent recruitment anymore but personally I would say if a database search, a linkedin search and a referral search have yielded nothing and the client is unwavering on either expanding the brief, upping the salary or retaining your services for search then I would be putting it on the backburner.

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Permalink Reply by Brian K. Johnston on January 26, 2012 at 11:26am

When client does not respond to a (qualified) resume submission within 48hrs. (Ideally 24hrs)

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Permalink Reply by Chris Grove on January 26, 2012 at 11:30am

I'm guessing you don't work in UK financial services recruitment! You'd be lucky to get that in a week sometimes.

Brian K. Johnston said:

When client does not respond to a (qualified) resume submission within 48hrs. (Ideally 24hrs)

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Permalink Reply by Amber on January 26, 2012 at 11:41am

All the answers so far are certainly true. I have been setting up all new clients with some sort of retainer, and was surprised at the fact that it did not deter many people from choosing to use our services. The ones who decide not to seemed to be the ones that were probably least likely to yield a positive result - for the type of reasons above. I also have told a few prospective clients that we were not interested in working on their jobs, again due to the types of reason everyone mentioned so far -

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Permalink Reply by Brian K. Johnston on January 26, 2012 at 12:26pm

Chris- I work in USA... (mindset is key-your time is valuable-create your luck)

Chris Grove said:

I'm guessing you don't work in UK financial services recruitment! You'd be lucky to get that in a week sometimes.

Brian K. Johnston said:

When client does not respond to a (qualified) resume submission within 48hrs. (Ideally 24hrs)

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Permalink Reply by Chris Grove on January 26, 2012 at 12:27pm

That was slightly tongue in cheek, I don't disagree with your point.

Brian K. Johnston said:

Chris- I work in USA... (mindset is key-your time is valuable-create your luck)

Chris Grove said:

I'm guessing you don't work in UK financial services recruitment! You'd be lucky to get that in a week sometimes.

Brian K. Johnston said:

When client does not respond to a (qualified) resume submission within 48hrs. (Ideally 24hrs)

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Permalink Reply by Brian K. Johnston on January 26, 2012 at 1:58pm

Chris Grove said:

That was slightly tongue in cheek, I don't disagree with your point.

Brian K. Johnston said:

Chris- I work in USA... (mindset is key-your time is valuable-create your luck)

Chris Grove said:

I'm guessing you don't work in UK financial services recruitment! You'd be lucky to get that in a week sometimes.

Brian K. Johnston said:

When client does not respond to a (qualified) resume submission within 48hrs. (Ideally 24hrs)

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Permalink Reply by Bill Ward on January 26, 2012 at 2:30pm

What are you walking away from? There's no commitment on either side.

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Permalink Reply by Linda Ferrante on January 26, 2012 at 3:12pm

When I know I've given it 100% effort and the client either hasn't chosen a candidate, won't return calls or the 'perfect' candidate hasn't been uncovered. At that time, I'll have a frank conversation with the client and let them know exactly what is going on, and the potential repercussions of his/her actions.

If I can't be honest with a client about what is going on in the search, I'm not sure how honest I can be with the candidate!