Recruitment is unusual as a purchase: the thing you are buying is judgement, and judgement is invisible until after you have paid for it. Reputation and referrals help, but if you are evaluating an agency cold, these nine questions do most of the work.
1. How many profiles will I see, and how many will you screen to get there?
This is the single most revealing question, because it exposes whether the agency does the filtering or outsources it to you. Ten to twenty submittals per hire is common in the industry. Some send considerably more.
A good answer is a specific ratio, with the top of the funnel included. "We screened forty and sent you eight" describes work. "We'll send you plenty of options" describes forwarding.
2. How many other clients are you running this brief for right now?
Under contingency pricing, an agency is paid only on placement, so hedging across many clients with similar roles is rational. It is also the reason your search may be receiving a fraction of anyone's attention. Ask directly. The answer tells you where you sit in their portfolio.
3. Who does the screening, and will I speak to them?
In many firms the person who sells the engagement is not the person who runs it. That is not inherently wrong, but you should know before signing, and you should meet whoever will actually read the CVs.
4. What will you tell me if the compensation band will not clear the market?
Listen for whether they will tell you at all, and when. An agency that discovers this in week six has cost you six weeks. An agency that says it at intake is giving up the easy sale in exchange for being useful, which is exactly the behaviour you want.
5. What happens if you think the role is wrong?
Most failed hires trace back to a role that was never properly defined rather than a candidate who was badly sourced. An agency that will push back on your job description before sourcing is worth more than one that simply executes it. You are paying for judgement, not agreement.
6. How will you screen for the things the CV does not show?
Ask for the actual method, not the reassurance. For a factory manager role, for instance, nearly every applicant is a production manager who describes themselves as having run the factory, and both CVs use identical language. The way to tell them apart is to probe the interfaces between functions, dispatch scheduling and how they traded off production targets against despatch commitments. A production person goes thin there.
Whatever your role, a credible agency can describe a specific technique. A weak one talks about "getting to know candidates".
7. What is your replacement guarantee, and what voids it?
Sixty to ninety days is standard. The exclusions matter more than the headline: redundancy, role change, and resignation for reasons unrelated to fit are commonly excluded, and reasonably so. Read them before you need them.
8. How will you keep me informed, including when there is nothing to report?
Silence in recruitment usually means bad news being postponed. A weekly written update regardless of progress is a low bar, and a surprising number of agencies will not commit to it.
9. Tell me about a search that went badly.
The best question on the list, and the one most likely to be dodged. Every recruiter has searches that went long. Someone who can describe one honestly, name what caused it and say what they changed is telling you how they will behave when yours goes sideways. Someone whose every search has gone perfectly is either new or not being straight with you.
What we would answer
On a recent sales role: forty-plus profiles screened, eight shared in two batches of four, hired from the second batch, twenty-five days from intake to joining. On a factory manager search where the brief changed mid-way: a hundred-plus screened, twenty to twenty-five shared, about forty-five days. The second number is worse, and the reason is the point.
Our answers to the rest are on how we work, including what we commit to in writing and what we need from you for any of it to hold.
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