Bartering with recruiters: Why cutting fees can cost your business

When hiring, every business wants value for money and it’s tempting to negotiate recruitment fees or barter services with a recruitment agency. 

But here’s the cold hard truth: bartering with recruiters is a false economy that will cost your business more in the long run.

Recruitment should be an investment, not an opportunity to save a couple of hundred pounds here and there

Hiring the right candidate will transform any business, while the opposite can cost thousands of pounds in wasted time, training, lost productivity, and team morale. 

It’s a professional service, not a commodity and pressuring a recruitment agency to cut their fees risks lowering the quality of service you will receive, reducing the time and attention your vacancy needs.

You could lose access to top talent

Recruitment agencies want to provide their best candidates to clients who value quality partnerships. If you undervalue the process by bartering, it’s likely that you will be deprioritised and miss out on the best candidates who will end up working for your competition.

Bartering damages the partnership approach

Strong recruiter-client relationships are built on trust, collaboration and mutual understanding, not negotiation over fees. The best recruitment outcomes rely on:

• understanding your business culture and needs
• market insights and salary benchmarking
• end-to-end support from job spec to candidate placement
• taking the candidate through the whole recruitment journey, ensuring a win-win for you the employer and the candidate
• your employment brand

Bartering creates a transactional business relationship, reducing trust and urgency.

Lower fees often means a lower level of service

Recruiters invest heavily in every hire from bespoke advertising campaigns and screening to interviews and compliance checks. Reduced fees can lead to:

• fewer candidates shortlisted
• less money spent on bespoke advertising
• lees time spent on getting to know your business and its unique culture
• less time spent on searching and candidate networking
• less time spent servicing your vacant posts over other clients
• less effort and time spent starting over or changing direction when a campaign needs adjusting to attract more candidates
• less time spent on vetting
• reduced aftercare post-placement
• and finally: an increased risk that the recruiter will not want to work with you again, which can risk the ‘employee targeting’ protection that normally comes with a mutually valued partnership

Expertise should be valued

We don’t barter with lawyers, accountants, new car dealerships, supermarkets or dentists, so why is ok to barter with a recruiter? 

Recruiters offer more than just a CV, they provide in-depth market knowledge, excellent negotiation skills, timely risk management and have access to talent pools built up over years of networking and pipelining. 

Bartering undervalues their expertise and will reduce their commitment to you as business, as they will prioritise their time and energy to clients who value their expertise.

Focus on value, not on price

The smartest employers don’t choose the cheapest agency; they choose the one that delivers results. Maybe ask questions like:

• why should I work with you?
• what makes your process more effective than your competition?
• how do you ensure that there is a cultural fit?
• how will you fit in with my business needs?
• what happens if things don’t go according to plan?
• why should I choose you instead of doing it myself?

Focus on the potential outcome, not the cost.

Final thoughts

Bartering is a false economy. A good recruiter will become a loyal partner that you can rely on time and time again, safe in the knowledge that they have your needs covered, and if they don’t find your next best hire the cost to you will be zero because most recruiters will work for you for nothing until you hire a new member of staff. 

Recruitment should be an investment in your business’s future, not an opportunity to save a few hundred pounds only to find your bad hire has cost your thousands later on down the line.  

Invest in a good recruiter and they will invest in you.

Our sales pitch in a sentence: 

One to One Personnel has over twenty years of multi-sector recruitment industry experience and a ‘No Upfront Fee’ policy meaning it’s all down to us to make sure you get exactly what you want, and our prices include a dedicated recruitment consultant who will work tirelessly for you until they find your next best hire, all for a very reasonable fixed fee, which also includes a ‘just in case’ peace of mind three month refund guarantee!