How Does Your Firm Pay Out On Interoffice Splits?

I am currently one of the managers at a 25-person, primarily contingency-based search firm that does a lot of interoffice splits. We have been in business since 1991, and have a long-standing company policy of our recruiters being able to “own” candidates in our database, ad infinitum, as long as they were the first person to bring in that particular candidate’s resume. We have even gone as far to allow those that put in meaningful information on a candidate into the database without obtaining the resume, to retain a piece of the ownership once the resume eventually comes in.

Since information is much easier to come by on the internet these days, compared to the 1990’s, we are giving serious thought as to possibly restructuring how much of a percentage we offer to candidate “owners.” As a result, I am very interested to hear how other firms with multiple recruiters deal with this issue.

Does your firm allow recruiters to “own” candidates and pay them when they are placed by others? If so, is there a statute of limitations? In general, how do your interoffice splits get paid out?

Comment by Jerry Albright on March 18, 2011 at 7:52am: This is a fun topic. It's been a while since I was in an agency but we did have some pretty specific "ownership" policies in place. This is a sticky subject for sure.

You owned the candidate for 90 days or something like that when you put them into the system. You also had ownership while they were on a sendout with you - regardless of how long they had been in the system. So for all practical purposes - if you were working with them they were yours. If you weren't - they were community property.

This worked out pretty well though there were always situations from time to time where several recruiters were pleading their case on why it was THEIR candidate. Always fun......

Comment by Barbara Goldman on March 18, 2011 at 7:30pm: This is critical to success if you want to split.

We use the 'but for' rule, and we have a database that is private for our recruiters. Nobody knows who is in the database.

Our jobs are then posted, and whatever recruiter submits the candidate first owns that interview. Nothing else.

If I go through the database, (I can see all accounts) candidates will be recruited by more than one recruiter. But, when it comes to the deal making part, the part we get paid for, only one recruiter will submit the candidate. Whoever really knows the candidate will get it done.

We don't care who 'touched' or 'recruited' the candidate first. We own interviews, nothing else. it works.

Comment by Kevin Glassel on March 21, 2011 at 1:17pm: Thanks to all for your comments. It definitely helps to hear about how others handle this sometimes-touchy subject.