How much of your salary do recruiters take?

A common baseline for contingency rates is 20%. Recruiters don't take part of your salary. However, the company where the hiring agency places you, compensates the recruiter based on a percentage of your first-year salary if the employer and the hiring agency have a contingency agreement in place. Recruiters from outside agencies earn a small base salary, but most of their salary comes from the commission they earn by placing clients.

The average commission a hiring agency earns varies from case to case, but it is not uncommon for a first-year salary of the employed employee to be reduced by 40%. Providing the recruiter with the most accurate information possible will put him in a better position to get you a job. In addition, not all hiring companies earn a 40% commission for a job placement, some earn less, say 20% or 30%. Job seekers often refer to themselves as “customers,” and recruiters are trained not to correct them.

You should work with the recruiter who called you first about the position and inform the second recruiter that you're already working with an agency. As a job applicant, you may have questions about recruiters if you've never worked with one in the past. So it's up to the recruiter whether to spend time matching a lot of work orders with lower rates or placing a person in a C-level position for a higher fee. In general, there are two types of commissions that external recruiters can receive: a hiring commission (or fee) and a placement commission (or fee).

General recruiters and engineers act as intermediaries when it comes to negotiating salaries and can request more money without jeopardizing the job offer. Employers use recruiters from staffing agencies as a service and compensate the recruiter for finding you. A recruiter has nothing to gain if they tell their current employer that they are looking for a new job opportunity. Most agency recruiters have a base salary and are paid commissions when placing candidates in companies for which they recruit on their behalf.

If you are looking for job stability with a fixed salary, then your two main options are to work as an internal recruiter or for a staffing agency that offers a base salary. However, there is no guarantee that employees will be placed, so there is more job stability as an internal hiring specialist. That reduces the profits of individual recruiters and further muddies the question of determining exactly how much an individual recruiter earns each year. Often, recruiters call on weekends because it's easier to contact a job applicant who isn't working.

The recruitment agency then transfers the corresponding commission to the individual recruiter on a monthly basis during the 12-month assignment.