Ever felt that Agency permanent recruitment fee structures are too complex and don't always represent value for money? Well, at a recent Extrastaff Managers' conference we discussed permanent recruitment pricing and how we would feel if we were in the client's shoes and we were presented with the standard Recruitment Industry pricing.

Some of the Managers' feedback was that it did not necessarily make sense that as the salary of the position being recruited increased, the percentage fee increased. Also that the goals of the Client and the Agency were not perfectly aligned given that there is no financial incentive for a placement to be successful. In addition to these, we also looked at our internal structure and the ways that we could make permanent placement more cost effective and efficient to deliver - without comprising on the quality of our candidates.

So we have come up with a change to our permanent placement fees and decided to trial the new structure from now until the 30th June 2009. The fee structure is straight forward with three simple components;

• All fees are at 10% of the starting salary package - irrespective of the salary band or position
• All fees are capped at a maximum of $8,000 per placement - irrespective of the salary band or position
• 50% of the fee is payable upon the commencement of the placed candidate - with the other 50% payable at 6 months from the commencement date of the candidate. If the placed candidate is no longer there at the 6 month mark - then no further fees apply

Naturally, while price/fees are an important issue at the end of the day the most important thing is that the Agency gets the right people for their Clients. We're confident that after 22 years of looking out for people, looking out for jobs we can recruit the right people for our Clients so we're interested to see what they think of our new pricing structure.

Any feedback (positive or negative) is appreciated so if you are keen to provide some please do not hesitate to speak to your local Extrastaff office or click to email Declan Rowan (Extrastaff Managing Director).