A permanent recruitment agency earns when a candidate it found joins a client and stays. Recruiters work to monthly targets, and the real pressure sits in candidates who vanish before joining and clients who push back on fees.
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Share your requirementsA permanent recruitment agency finds candidates for client vacancies and is paid when a placement joins and completes the replacement period. Recruiters sit in teams or desks by sector, source profiles, screen by phone, send shortlists and chase offers through to the joining date. Each recruiter is judged on interviews set, offers and joins in a month, so the work is quick, repetitive and emotionally tiring. Many agencies are founder run with a few senior billers, and new recruiters arrive in batches and leave just as fast. See the professional services hub and the recruitment agencies hub.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
A recruiter who spent weeks on a placement loses it when the candidate takes a counter-offer or simply stops answering calls.
Chasing calls, interviews and joins each month burns out recruiters, and good performers leave for client-side roles after a hard quarter.
Two recruiters claim credit for one placement, and the argument over who sourced and who closed splits a desk.
Fresh hires are handed a phone and a list, and learn to read a job brief, speak to candidates and handle objections the hard way.
When a senior biller resigns, candidate relationships and open mandates walk out with little recorded in the firm's own database.
The agency is blamed for a candidate who left early, and there is no agreed note of what the recruiter told the client.
Resumes and notes sit on phones and mailboxes, so a new recruiter cannot see who a colleague spoke to last month.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Recruitment and Talent Acquisition; Performance Management; Learning and Development. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a permanent recruitment agencies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Trainee, recruiter, senior recruiter and desk lead, with targets, skills and a clear route up.
What this coversHideTrainee, recruiter, senior recruiter and desk lead, with targets, skills and a clear route up. See role design.
A one page rule on sourcing credit, closing credit and sharing, applied alike across desks and settled before the work starts.
What this coversHideA one page rule on sourcing credit, closing credit and sharing, applied alike across desks and settled before the work starts.
Two weeks on briefs, screening calls, objections and client updates, led by a senior biller, before targets begin.
What this coversHideTwo weeks on briefs, screening calls, objections and client updates, led by a senior biller, before targets begin.
Every call and note recorded where colleagues can see it, so a desk change does not lose the relationship.
What this coversHideEvery call and note recorded where colleagues can see it, so a desk change does not lose the relationship.
Reasons, stage and recruiter, reviewed monthly to find where the agency can act earlier.
What this coversHideReasons, stage and recruiter, reviewed monthly to find where the agency can act earlier. Reporting shows it clearly.
Replacement terms and candidate commitments written in one note and kept with the mandate.
What this coversHideReplacement terms and candidate commitments written in one note and kept with the mandate.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A clean path from client brief to joining date, with checks that reduce drop-outs between offer and start.
Targets and incentive design that reward quality placements and fair sharing of credit.
A structured start for trainee recruiters, with call practice and senior review.
A look at when recruiters leave and what keeps the strongest billers.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
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Sources beyond the neighbouring gate for setters, turners, inspectors and leak test hands, plus a one-hour bench trial built from your own rejected parts.
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Measures that show how reactor, console, lab and gantry staff are really doing, the ones that mislead or bury near misses, and a monthly sheet an in-charge can run in twenty minutes.
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Plastics training dies when it waits for a free Saturday. Tie it to mould changes, purges and cold starts, use one-point lessons and a visible skill ladder, and protect it in peak months.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Keep in touch from offer to joining, learn what the candidate's employer is likely to offer in return, and log reasons for each drop-out. Patterns show where earlier action helps.
Write simple rules for sourcing, closing and joint work before the month begins, apply them the same way each time and let a named lead settle disputes quickly.
Reading a job brief, screening calls, handling objections and updating clients. Pair each trainee with a senior for live calls, and start targets only after a block of practice.
Keep candidate and client notes in the firm's own database, have a second recruiter on each major mandate and agree notice and handover terms in writing.
It is common, but it can be eased with clear steps up, fair incentives and good training. Track who leaves, when and why, and fix the biggest cause first.
We would count offers that never turned into joins, ask how credit is shared and see what trainees are taught. A trainee programme with written credit rules is a natural first piece, and scope is agreed in writing for your sign-off.
All 3 business types in recruitment & staffing agencies · Find another business type
See all HR topics for professional services, or another industry.
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