Bountyjobs - what do you think?

Well, another one of my clients has moved to Bountyjobs. I understand from a corporate perspective that it helps them organize their 3rd party recruiting.

As a TPR, I am not happy. I am a niche recruiter, and work on specialized jobs in these companies. I have had relationships for many years with these companies and the hiring managers (sometimes with the HR as well, when there was no turnover). Usually, I work on these positions exclusively or with only one or two other of my competitors in the space.

With the advent of Bountyjobs, if I continue to work with these companies, I have to endure competing with more agencies, many who are generalists and have no pipeline in my niche. I have to reduce my fee (Bounty gets a piece). The process moves to one of less feedback and control. All in all, from my side, I see no advantage.

Bounty will say that it will open me up to more business at the company, but since I am niche, it doesn't really.

My opinion, the jobs posted there become cattle calls for tons of recruiters and the recruiters lose the relationships we have built with our clients, and eventually our candidates, since we can no longer manage the process.

Would love to hear other opinions here.....

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Permalink Reply by Amber on September 24, 2013 at 7:12pm

Not an expert, but this is what I've seen so far:

BJ can work o.k., I suppose, if your client only accepts limited recruiters to work on positions. And pays a higher percentage fee to make up for what BJ takes. Oh, and your clients can make you a "preferred" recruiter or something like that which I think charges you a lower BJ fee. I also recall that after a certain number of placements with an employer there is a reduced or no fee to BJ.

We had one client who went to BJ. We were willing to work thru it at first, but quickly found it was miserable. Now, if a client mentions BJ I do let them know I will not work thru BJ. I don't know if companies are "locked" into BJ for a certain amount of time or what, but it just didn't work for us. Employers and recruiters tend to lose their one on one communication, bunches of recruiters end up on a position, etc. And much communication on BJ is not private at all. Meaning if you have a question/comment about a "bounty" you have, it gets posted on a wall that EVERY engaged recruiter can see.

We have one of our recruiters work on a few jobs to see what happened. We had one go to final interview stage, the others never even got much response or updates even though they seemed to get plenty of resumes from the recruiters they had chosen.

Also, be aware of candidate information ownership, working with a company outside of BJ - even if you had not engaged on a "bounty" with that company, etc.

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Permalink Reply by Roni Zapin on September 24, 2013 at 7:19pm

@Amber Thanks. I have experienced all the same. I have only worked on Preferred status, but it doesn't seem to matter. Even with the smaller fee BJ takes, total fee is still under what my original fee was, and I am working against many firms that just cut and paste and don't recruit. You are correct, no feedback. I deleted all my submittals since I did not know where they would end up.

Is that what you meant by your final statement??