FAQ

Most people will be familiar with recruitment agencies in some way, but a lot of people don’t know how they actually work. In the simplest of terms, recruitment agencies work with clients directly on job vacancies and source quality candidates to fill those vacancies. Clients then essentially pay a finder’s fee to the agency.
However, the world of recruitment has been evolving and expanding its services to include work around consulting, payroll services and executive search.

Recruitment agencies work for both clients and candidates. Clients come to them with job vacancies they want to be filled, agencies will then post a job vacancy through various tools such LinkedIn, job boards and their own site.
They will also have a database of candidates, which they can already start searching through to come up with the perfect shortlist. They then pre-screen the candidates, prep them and put them forward for an interview with the employer.
If an agency’s candidate is successful, the client will pay the ‘finder’s fee’, which is usually a percentage of the successful candidate’s salary. Fees vary between recruitment agencies and they can vary for other factors. For example, some fees might be lower in cases where there is high volume and the fee is guaranteed. On the other side, certain fees might go above average for a hard-to-find candidate.

No. In Egypt, to have an agency license you cannot charge candidates, you can only charge clients. Typically, the client pays a fee for you to hire someone for them. This is usually a percentage of salary.
The services of a recruitment agency are completely free for candidates and jobseekers and the benefits are enormous. A recruitment consultant can help you position yourself better, give you solid interview advice and give you access to jobs you may not even know about.

Recruitment consultants have a base salary and then make a commission on the candidates they place, which is paid by the employer as a percentage of the candidate’s salary. There may be a ‘fees’ threshold that consultants have to reach before they start making commission and that threshold will increase as they become more senior, but so does their base salary and target.

The services of a recruitment agency are completely free for candidates and jobseekers and the benefits are enormous. A recruitment consultant can help you position yourself better, give you solid interview advice and give you access to jobs you may not even know about.

No, it means the clients pay the recruitment agency the fee directly. It is not taken out of the new employee’s salary, that is merely how it is calculated. However, it also means clients don’t have to pay the fee until the consultant gives them a successful candidate.

Candidates who are familiar with recruitment agency job ads may have noticed that they commonly leave out the name of the actual company. There can be a number of reasons behind this. Sometimes this is a client-driven decision because they haven’t communicated internally that they’re hiring yet, or the recruitment agency may have been asked to work in the background and not make it known yet.
The other reason behind it is to eliminate bias on the candidate’s side and to capture a wider audience. As a candidate, you will more than likely have your own opinions about companies or industries and seeing that information on a job spec could turn you off before you even look at the role. Leaving out the company’s names can help you focus on the role itself.

The nature of recruitment work means that agencies and consultants have two customers: clients and candidates. Without one or the other, they cannot be successful, so they are genuinely working for both.

However, there is an important distinction that can often be forgotten about. The employers are the ones that pay the fee. Candidates receive a free service from recruitment agencies, while employers pay for the privilege of being offered a top-quality candidate, so it’s important that agencies work hard to find the perfect candidate for their clients.

That’s not to say that consultants don’t have their candidates’ best interests in mind. After all, a well-matched candidate who is happy with their new job means a better relationship with the consultant, a better commission and a satisfied client. At On-Hire, we work hard to help candidates find their dream job, prep them diligently for interviews, communicate with them throughout the process and advocate for them at offer stage. Our glowing Trustpilot reviews shows our dedication to candidates, while our success stories show our commitment to our clients.

A lot of people wonder why they should bother with a recruitment agency when they can look for their own job instead. But some of the biggest benefits are, by their very nature, hidden. For example, agencies have access and knowledge of so many more jobs than you could possibly find. Not all jobs go onto traditional job sites, while others will be in companies that you’ll have never heard of.

At On-Hire, we’ve often placed people in jobs where they’ve never heard of the company before but they’re so grateful because they turn out to be fantastic companies. On the flip side, it can also be the best way to get into those well-known but hard-to-reach companies.

Additionally, a good recruitment consultant will have insider knowledge about the company, the culture, the business plans and even what the hiring manager is really like. An agency gives candidates that extra buffer between them and the company, meaning they can ask questions they wouldn’t dare ask the actual employer.

A good agency will always present a full picture of the role, the company and the problems as well as the major selling points. Our managing personally believes it’s important to never hide the bad parts of the role because that will just be a bad reflection on the agency once they’re in there and it’s not worth it.

No company is without problems, but all roles will have their own benefits and opportunities for the right person. It’s just a matter of finding them, being frank about the cons and then sell the best parts. While we can’t speak for all recruitment agencies, Integrity is one of our company core values at On-Hire because we know that working with an agency you can trust to tell the truth is extremely important.

Recruitment agencies will also be able to assist candidate on how to properly position yourself in the market, highlight roles you may not have considered and expertly prepare you for your job interview. 

Similar to jobseekers getting access to jobs, agencies can give clients or employers much better access to talent. The network that agencies have will far outweigh a single company’s reach. It also means that if you need to fill a role on short notice, good recruitment agencies are likely to be able to get a quality shortlist to you in as little as three days depending on the role. This will reduce the cost of replacing employees who leave.

Even if you don’t need a shortlist in such a small amount of time, agencies have systems and processes in place to eradicate the time you would have to spend on looking for talent from scratch. It also means you have a trusted third party who you can trust to give you a good candidate. And, once again, this means that you can get a better insight about the candidates.
Companies and leaders can often wonder whether or not a third party is necessary for their talent acquisition and if they’d be better off just doing it themselves, but benefits of recruitment agencies far outweigh the costs. Aside from the extensive network and the shorter hiring times, good agencies can also streamline hiring processes and share expert knowledge around interviewing practices, CV selection, benchmarking, employer branding and much more.
Once you’ve decided a recruitment agency is right for you, it’s just a matter of deciding which agency is right for you. You need to know they are equipped to deal with your particular needs and you need to know what their screening methods and processes are. Remember, not all recruitment agencies are the same.