Bounty Jobs - Be Very Careful!

The concept behind bounty jobs is actually brilliant - it is an online "bulletin board" where employers post open positions exclusively to the recruiting community. There are no contracts to be signed and the search fee is clearly indicated to all recruiters. In addition, search firms must apply and be "hired" by the employer in order to work on the position. Prior to working on a search assignment, a recruiter can review the number of postions a company has posted on bounty jobs, how many of those were filled by recruiters and how often the company reviews a resume within seven days. All great information to have yet I found the site to be an extremely poor use of a recruiters time and here is why.

- Before working on any position, I would utilize linkedin to see the background of people previously in the position. I can say pretty confidently that my candidate's were substantially more qualified than previous people in the position yet my candidates could not even get an phone interview. I got the sense that you could send them a guy who could part the seas and the client would say, "Yeah, we are not very impressed".

- Three positions my firm worked on suddenly were put on hold and with no advance warning. Although this happens in this business, I found the frequent occurence of this on Bounty Jobs alarming.

- Employers do not like to partner with search firms - one company even told one of my recruiters - "we can't tell you who the position reports to". We pulled out of that postion immediately. Communication is very poor overall.

- It is my understanding that Bounty Jobs does not have recruiters taking the job orders so they are very poorly qualified in my opinion.

With my other clients, I usually only need to send about four resumes before a company will make a hire. On bounty jobs, my firm sent about twenty five resumes in with none of those leading to a hire. This leads me to believe that many companies are using Bounty Jobs as a method to substantially upgrade their database. They are using outside recruiters to do the leg work essentially for free.

The enclosed review is simply my opinion. However, I based it on factual comparisons with my others searches. The idea is great and others may be much more successful, however to spend time on a non exclusive contingency search which requires you to pay Bounty Jobs 25% of the search fee is a poor choice. Your time will be better spent elsewhere.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on October 23, 2008 at 7:54pm

Informative post based on actual experience. Thank you!

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Permalink Reply by Darren Crosby on October 23, 2008 at 8:24pm

In my opinion, if companies are allowed to have their databases updated for free it will result in a cannabilization of our business. Companies will be able to have an endless number of recruiters providing them an endless supply of talent which will diminish the chances for other recruiters to earn a fee. We may ultimately find companies do not need our services because they already have the names of people in the industry.

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Permalink Reply by Slouch on October 23, 2008 at 11:46pm

I don't see this as a threat to our industry. I think the thing that makes a recruiter needed is far beyond just having the name. Also, the way this industry works, and I don't see it changing is that if your fee agreement says that if you bring to the table a candidate who your client is not currently talking with, the fee goes to you. It is counter productive for your client to see this any other way. It's an easy sell.

The other thing is that if you live in the third party bubble which I am proud to be a tenant of, you never ever see anything as a threat to this business. You believe that the value you bring to the table can never be replaced by software and you believe that good clients will always see this. You also believe that the fees that are earned are necessary to build your business and in order for you to feel real good about the job that you have. You find it amusing that there are those dedicated to the concept that great talent should be easy and cheap to get.

Darren Crosby said:

In my opinion, if companies are allowed to have their databases updated for free it will result in a cannabilization of our business. Companies will be able to have an endless number of recruiters providing them an endless supply of talent which will diminish the chances for other recruiters to earn a fee. We may ultimately find companies do not need our services because they already have the names of people in the industry.

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Permalink Reply by Hunter on December 10, 2008 at 6:51pm

Here's some potentially good news about this. A good friend of over 30 years just told me about Bounty Jobs. He said he had great luck hiring 3 people recently; 2 IT Techies and an IT Marketing person, salaries from about $70-90k, each at 20% fees. He was thrilled. I should ask him how many resumes he received though, and how long it took could be informative. I figure with names and numbers I can check these people out and call them. I look forward to giving it a try. It will be another information source if nothing else. Thanks for the perspectives on this. Happy hunting and HAPPY Holidays! We recruiters will rise again!

Hunter

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Permalink Reply by Paul Rallo on April 3, 2009 at 5:46pm

I was referred to Bounty Jobs via a client and have to say they are a very poorly run organization. I have been waiting over two months to have a password authorized. My client gave me several names of people to contact there which did no good because no one has ever responded to my voice mails or emails. I also then put a call into one of the owner's and was pushed back onto his customer service people who once again did nothing.

Now after reviewing their website, who's to say this company isn't the next "Bernie Madoff". Given the status of our economy how could recruiters trust a third party to managing their money. If you do the work why does the client pay Bounty Jobs directly? And then you have to set-up an account with them. Sorry, but I would be very careful before working through this type of process.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Broder on May 29, 2009 at 10:10am

Building clients databases is a real threat and problem ESPECIALLY given the fact that BountyJobs agreement only protects candidates we refer to the client for 6 months. That means after 6 months, the client is under NO obligation to contact the recruiter about a specific candidate, but can instead contact that candidate directly and of course WITHOUT paying any fee. This is very troubling to me and should be to every other recruiter who undertands the need to have reasonable protection periods for candidates we work with. For this reason alone I, my company, and everyone else should NOT WORK WITH BOUNTYJOBS.

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on May 29, 2009 at 10:13am

I wonder how many millions of dollars BountyJobs coaxed out of hopeful investors with too much money and too little understanding of just how lame their business model really was.