Before you can recruit for us.....

.....you'll need to agree to the cut rate, bargain-bin fee the other agencies agreed to. The position has been open since December and we really need someone ASAP. Do you have anyone? The manager is losing his mind - and taking it out on me!

This happens ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!

So let me get this straight. Your company found a few recruiters during the recession that agreed to cut their fee in half? Good job. Thank you for helping some of the bottom feeders hang on just a bit longer. How kind of you.

Now that Cutfee and Associates have found better clients and moved on - you expect ME to lower my fee to whatever rate they agreed to? What am I - an idiot? Am I not supposed to put 2 and 2 together here?

Why in the world should I be forced to make the same agreement some other bozo made with you? (Who then could not deliver.....and has bailed on you....or perhaps left the industry all together?)

Here's an example. I would LOVE a new Corvette. The one I'd like is $79,000. I convinced a salesman to sell it to me for $50K. I was ready to buy. That was a month ago - haven't heard from him since.

What are the odds on the next dealership hooking me up?

Comment by Sandra McCartt on May 9, 2012 at 3:28pm: LOL Stephen, that was the point, you get what you pay for. I am just a bit more "Texan" than most people.

I have also been know to tell a potential client who wants me to cut a fee that i don't mind be used a little bit but i hate like the devil to feel like i am being used like the only wench on a pirate ship. I may not get their business but i usually get a laugh and sometimes they call back still laughing and say, "ok, we will go 20% for the "right person". The only response to that is, "If i send you the wrong person i would hope you won't hire them, so if you hire someone i send ,you pay 20%. Don't call me back and tell me that you want to hire a candidate but since they may be borderline or you are not totally sure can i cut the fee." If you hire, you pay the fee at 20%. I don't get paid on your impression of what the candidate might be in six months. I get paid to find you somebody you want to hire. period."

I won't take cut rate business unless i get an exclusive on multiple spots then i quote a turn key amount based on a sliding scale of filled positions. ie; first three at standard rate, next three at 18% etc. or we can settle up at the end of the run, take the total amount of what fees would be at standard rate for all filled positions and take a chunk off it if it is paid by electronic transfer that day.

Comment by Cindy Cremona, CPC on May 9, 2012 at 5:38pm: I love you Sandra! Why don't more recuiters have the bullocks we do to stand by their fees and the real reasons we charge what we do?

Can I borrow the wench analogy? That should rattle a CFO or two ~

Comment by Sandra McCartt on May 9, 2012 at 8:21pm: You may have anything i say anytime. Just remember there are no guarantees that anything i say will not be held against you, get you sued or slapped upside the head. :) Use a Texas accent it sometimes keeps someone from getting mad at you. they just think yer ignernt.

Comment by Steve N Odell on May 18, 2012 at 1:19pm: Another comeback when the client says we have others that will do it for x %- Oh, I can give the # of some others that will do it less than that. Their # may have changed because they seem to move a lot.