More on TimeStamps vs ButFors follow this blog post

posted by Dave Staats on Nov. 30, 2007

     In response to an inquiry I have pasted in the two (and only two) lines of our agreement that address what constitutes a referral. In 22 years I have seen all kinds of things in fee agreements... Strange things written at times by both sides. Even though language dealing with time frames is offered in the model direct hire agreement put forth by NAPS and ASA I don't recall ever seeing it offered by the search side in an actual agreement. It's very common on the client side and I fight it all the time. Earlier in my career I even worked under agreements with "expiration dates" for referrals when I thought I'd only be introducing one or two candidates. Even the language in the model agreement that I just looked up refers to whether the candidate has an interview scheduled NOT when the data was made available. I'd never work under an agreement that states only that the first entity to make the data arrive at the destination is due a fee.

     I'll be happy to argue this point as long as I remain in the business. I'll also support the notion that anyone working under,let alone, SELLING the idea of nothing more than a time stamp establishing a referral on the front end simply needs more practice and training. I'd love to have someone show me material from any credible trainer supporting this idea.

     I am sure there are some people out there who think this is the way to go. There's someone out there forwarding every new Monster resume every morning hoping they'll get a call from their client asking to interview the guy they have never spoken with before....And I am sure they make just enough money to make them keep doing it again and again and again

   

 

 

Employer agrees to pay a placement fee to SearchPartner when a candidate directly or indirectly referred by SearchPartner is hired for any position by employer or any of its affiliates.

 

Employer's employment of any candidate who has been directly or indirectly referred by SearchPartner constitutes employer's agreement with SearchPartner?s fee schedule and terms.

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•  Dave Staats

  1 point 23 months ago

  The way you have described this anyone would suggest calling Recruiter A first. What's more important is what the client ends up doing. With this description and nothing else the clock may well be the factor that establishes the 'but for" aspect of the situation. The phrase "so often doing this" makes me wonder what kind of processes we are comparing. This has happened to me only twice in 2 years that I know of and the same recruiter was involved both times. Both times we developed the candidates through referrals and both times the other recruiter had scraped them from job boards. Aside from those two situations I have had a few where I didn't even make the referral because the candidate was already exposed.

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•  Debbie Peda

  1 point 24 months ago

  hmm. Interesting. Lets assume that agency A and agency B both fully screen and submit resumes to the same client company for the same opening, but agency A submits the resume 1 day before agency B. (As so often happens, the candidate fails to mention to agency B that he has already been screened) for whatever reason for the same position thru a different agency. (Sheer ignorance or disorganization, thinks both recruiters work for same company etc.) Candidates usually have a myriad of reasons for so often doing this. Which agency should the client company call to set up the interview? Should they call the recruiter that they like the best or do eenie, meanie, minie mo etc or go with the first submittal? What would you suggest in this case?

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