Contingency, exclusive or retained?

On a new role, one of the first things we talk about is how to run it. Most people default to the terms they used last time. That’s fine when last time went well. It’s worth a second look when the role is harder, more senior or more sensitive than usual, because the way you run a search changes who you end up seeing.

There are three ways to do it: contingency, exclusive and retained. The difference isn’t really the paperwork. It’s who’s committed to what, and what that does to the search.

Contingency

You brief the agency and pay only if they place someone. You can brief as many agencies as you like on the same role and pay whoever fills it.

For a lot of roles that’s exactly right. If the job is well defined, the pool is reasonable and you’re not under pressure to fill it by a date, contingency is quick to set up and you only pay for a result. A service engineer on a patch where there are plenty of good people is a typical example.

It gets harder as the role gets harder. When several agencies are on the same job, each one is racing the others. The incentive is to send CVs fast, and speed and fit aren’t the same thing. On a small pool, the same engineers get called about your role by two or three different people in the same week. That doesn’t make the job look attractive. It makes it look like you’re struggling to fill it.

There’s a quieter effect too. Agencies put their time where they’re most likely to be paid. A hard role shared with three other agencies is the one most likely to be worked last.

So contingency works best on roles that don’t need much searching. The harder the role, the less it suits.

Exclusive

One agency works the role on its own for an agreed period. At Perigon there’s no upfront fee.

What changes is the search itself. With the role to ourselves, we can map the market properly rather than race to the first available CVs. We can approach people who aren’t looking, take the time to explain the role, and come back to them when they need to think about it.

Candidates hear about your role once, from someone who can answer their questions. Your name and your role aren’t being passed round the market by several agencies at the same time. And you get one process and one point of contact.

Exclusive suits roles where the pool is small and everyone in it knows each other: an HV Authorised Person, a close control commissioning engineer, a sales manager the whole market already knows. In those markets, how the approach is made matters almost as much as who it’s made to.

Retained

A committed search with the fee paid in stages. The agency maps the market, approaches the people who fit, and reports back as it goes, so you can see who’s out there and why they are or aren’t interested.

It’s the right route for senior, confidential or business-critical hires: a country manager, a head of projects, an operations director. It’s also the route when getting it wrong would cost more than the search itself.

Confidential searches usually run this way. If you’re replacing someone who doesn’t know yet, or hiring ahead of something that isn’t public, we run the search without naming your business. Candidates only find out who you are once they’re serious about the role.

How to choose

Four questions usually settle it.

• How many people could do this job well? If the answer is plenty, contingency is fine. If you can almost name them, it isn’t.
• How many of them are looking? In critical power, critical cooling and HVAC, the best people usually aren’t. Reaching them takes a proper approach, not an advert.
• What happens if it’s still open in three months? If the honest answer is lost contracts, missed SLAs or a team running short, treat it as business-critical.
• Does anyone else need to know you’re hiring? If not, it needs a confidential search.

As a rough guide:

• The role is common and not urgent: contingency.
• The pool is small, or you want one agency to own it: exclusive.
• It’s senior, confidential or the business depends on it: retained.

Why it matters more in these sectors

Critical power, critical cooling and HVAC are small worlds. Engineers move between the same OEMs, service companies and contractors, and they talk to each other. A role that’s been shopped round several agencies gets noticed quickly. So does a confidential hire that isn’t handled carefully.

The pools are also thin at the specialist end. There are only so many engineers who can commission a UPS system, manage a chiller estate or lead a service team for critical sites. Those people get approached a lot. The ones worth hiring tend to respond to someone they know and trust, with a role explained properly, rather than to a fourth call about the same job.

None of that means every role needs to be exclusive or retained. Plenty don’t. But the terms should match the difficulty of the role, not just what was used last time.

What doesn’t change

Whichever route you choose, the basics are the same. Every candidate we send has been spoken to about your role. You’ll know why they’re on the list before you open the CV. And if the brief, the salary or the location is going to make the role hard to fill, you’ll hear it on the first call, not three weeks in.

If you’re not sure which route fits, say so when we speak. We’ll tell you straight which gives you the best chance of filling it, and how long we think it’ll take.