Is it time to work with your competitors?

Recruiter Daily, 20 April 2009

Recruiters should stop viewing each other as competition and work together to make more placements, says Elias Recruitment director Jason Elias.

Working with recruiters from other agencies in split-fee arrangements helps him to make around 25 per cent more placements than he otherwise would, he says.

While he is now a member of the not-for-profit co-operative NPA (and its Australian director), Elias was having success with splits long before joining. Usually, they were a result of connections formed with other recruiters at social events that developed into mutually beneficial working partnerships.

He says that splitting is "not for everyone" and, "it took me a while to get my head around working with 'competitors'", but splits have become a cornerstone of his business.



There are several different ways of doing a split but essentially it involves two recruiters sharing the fee when one places a candidate who was sourced in some way by the other. (The candidate might have already been interviewed and reference checked by the referring recruiter, or might just be someone from another industry who they would otherwise have no means to place in a job.) The amount of the split is negotiated between the parties to reflect the amount of work each was responsible for.

Last year, for example, a recruiter from Newcastle met a lawyer at a function who asked for assistance with her recruitment, Elias says. "Rather than say 'no thanks', he suggested she contact us at Elias Recruitment, as we are legal specialists. From that introduction, we made a number of placements and that client was one of our best last year."



Formal bodies like NPA provide - through their strict guidelines and vetting processes - a great deal of protection from "rip-offs", but recruiters and agencies that aren't members can still do splits so long as they "document everything, possibly see a lawyer, and only work with people you trust", Elias says.