The dreaded - "We're letting your candidate go - please find a replacement for free"

I've been a recruiter for 10 years and never had to replace a candidate yet until last week when I received the dreaded email - John just isn't working out. We are going to let him go and the COO wants you to find the replacement for free. My contract is for 60 days and it's been 75...but do I fight the 15 days they are past the contract - probably not.

Bummer for me and my candidate but lots of questions come from this:

Do I really need to do this for free? They also picked the candidate so where is their skin in the game?
If I don't do it for free, they won't work with me again....but if I do work for free will they still work with me anyway?

I am thinking of asking the client if I can also look through the people who have responded to their posting as perhaps there is a good candidate there. Has anyone ever done this?

Please share your thoughts on the best way to deal with this and can people please provide their experience in this area.

Thank you!

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on June 12, 2012 at 8:52pm

Anytime we in good faith try to fix a bad hire, whether the fault lies with the candidate, the employer or ourselves, it does not go unnoticed.

I had to laugh at Barry's comment. "if you bought a car that was a lemon think how mad you would be" but if you sold your client a lemon offer to sell him another one at half price or just ignore it and maybe it will go away. Never offer a trade credit because it keeps you on the hook to fix it. In my world I am on the hook to do whatever it takes to fix something that my client feels is a Bad deal.