It’s the time of year when entrepreneurs are developing next year’s budget for their recruiting business. If you are the owner of an independent recruiting agency, you should seriously consider adding split placements as part of your business mix next year. Split placements, where two recruiters from different agencies share the client’s fee, can be a terrific way to more effectively serve your clients and candidates.
Market your “leftover” candidates. When you present a shortlist of qualified candidates to your client and only one gets hired, what do you do with the others? It’s a candidate-short market. If you have qualified candidates, there are recruiters out there who can place them!
Expand your business coverage. Are you turning down jobs because they are outside your normal vertical or geographic market? Split placements can allow you to confidently say “yes” to more jobs. If your client needs a .Net developer and you typically provide accountants, consider split placements. Or, if your local client needs help filling a role in another country, reach out to a split placement partner for assistance.
Level out market fluctuations. Split placements allow you to complete more deals. More deals = more money and that’s good news in ANY economy. If your niche is soft (or slowing down), reaching out to split placement partners can pay the bills until your normal market recovers.
Fill more jobs without increasing overhead. If you have more jobs than you can fill, but don’t want the overhead associated with hiring your own recruiters, split placements are a great solution. You’ll gain instant access to more recruiters without having to train them, pay them, or invest in the tools to support their activities. Even better, you only pay your partners when you need them.
Split placements can be a lucrative addition to your recruiting business. It takes time to find the right partners and create the working relationships that allow splits to flourish. To be really successful, you’ll want to start building your network before you need it. There are a variety of options for making split placements, from figuring it out all on your own, to loose affiliations or groups on LinkedIn or other social media, to joining a formal recruiting network. There’s no right or wrong way to build your network of trusted partners, but if you want splits to be part of your business next year, start now!
Download our free checklist to help you evaluate split placement networks here:
