A recruiter is not a cost to avoid. It is a professional to choose.

We shop for insurance. We compare the price, the coverage, the deductibles and the quality of service. Nobody finds that insulting to the broker or the insurer — on the contrary, it is normal: we want to understand what we are buying before we commit. We do much the same in real estate. We ask the broker questions, we try to understand their experience, their support and the value they bring to a decision with serious consequences. The point is not to distrust the professional: it is to understand the relationship before entering it.

Recruitment deserves the same maturity. Two agencies can work on exactly the same role and offer very different terms: fees, replacement guarantee, specialisation, exclusivity, search method, or how long before the first candidates are presented. So the right question is probably not "do recruiters cost too much?" The better question is "what am I actually getting in return?" Because a good recruiter can save a business an enormous amount of time.

An agency is not simply a place to send a job posting

If an agency did exactly what an employer does — post the role on the same platforms and wait for the same applications — it would be fair to ask why you should pay for that. But a good recruiter does not always start searching the day you call. They may already know the market, have spoken last week with someone who matches the profile exactly, know which companies are hiring the same skills, which salaries make candidates move, and why certain postings stay open for months.

Above all, they can approach people who are not actively looking. That matters. A candidate browsing job boards can already be reached directly by the company. Someone who is employed, reasonably satisfied and never visits a job site is far harder to reach. That is often where a recruiter's network earns its keep.

The vacant role has a price too

An agency's fee is easy to see: it appears on an invoice. The cost of not having the right person in the job is far quieter.

Take a simple example. A small business is hiring for a role at $80,000 a year. An agency charges the equivalent of 20% of the annual salary for a permanent placement. The recruitment cost would therefore be $16,000. That is a significant sum.

But look at the other side. The role stays vacant for three months. The manager absorbs part of the work. Two employees work overtime. Some projects move more slowly, and the owner spends several hours a week looking for candidates personally. The $16,000 is easy to account for. The second scenario is much less so.

This obviously does not mean you should always use an agency. Plenty of roles can be filled directly. It simply means the cost of a recruiter and the cost of a vacancy belong in the same conversation.

Comparing agencies is not devaluing their work

Employers sometimes hesitate to speak with several agencies because it feels like "shopping around for recruiters." Yet we do exactly that with almost every other significant professional service.

Comparing does not automatically mean choosing the cheapest. If two insurers offer different coverage, you do not look only at the monthly premium. The same principle should apply to recruitment. An agency that charges more may have a very precise specialisation in your industry, an established candidate network and a better replacement guarantee. Another may be less specialised but more flexible, and perfectly suited to a less complex mandate. Neither is necessarily bad: they are simply different. And the only way to understand those differences is to ask.

Fees matter. They are simply not enough.

Suppose two agencies are working on an $80,000 role. Agency A charges 18%, or $14,400. Agency B charges 22%, or $17,600. Stop the analysis there, and Agency A obviously looks more attractive.

Now add some information. Agency A offers a 30-day replacement guarantee. Agency B offers 90 days and has worked exclusively in this industry for several years. Is Agency B worth $3,200 more? Maybe. Maybe not. That is precisely the point: the employer should have enough information to make that decision themselves. A healthy comparison does not turn the recruiter into a commodity. It gives the professional the chance to explain why their offer is different.

Better transparency protects recruiters too

Transparency is often discussed as though it only protected the client. I think that is incomplete: it also protects good professionals. If two agencies are presented purely as a percentage, all the value behind that number disappears. The recruiter's experience, their knowledge of an industry, their network, their assessment method, their guarantee and their ability to find certain people quickly all become invisible.

In that context, price naturally takes up too much room. When the employer understands better what they are comparing, an agency can defend its value differently. "We are more expensive" matters far less when the next sentence is: "here is why." For good recruiters, more transparency should not be a threat. It can be a chance to stand out.

The guarantee deserves more attention than a few percentage points

A hire can look perfect during the interview and fall apart three weeks later. Neither the recruiter nor the employer can eliminate that completely. This is where a replacement guarantee becomes interesting.

But not all guarantees work the same way. One agency may offer a fresh search for a given period. Another may attach conditions. The duration may vary with the mandate or the type of role. So the right question is not only "do you have a guarantee?" It is better to ask: "what concretely happens if the person leaves or the placement does not work out?" That conversation protects the business, and it protects the recruiter against expectations that were never discussed.

The same goes for exclusivity

An exclusive mandate is not necessarily bad for the employer. In some cases it even allows the recruiter to invest more time in the search, knowing they are not competing against five other agencies on the same role. But exclusivity has to be understood.

The employer can simply ask: "am I still free to recruit myself, or to work with another agency, during your mandate?" If the answer is no, that is not automatically a problem. It is a condition to weigh. The danger is not exclusivity: the danger is discovering it too late.

Ask when you should expect to see something

"We will work quickly on your mandate" is reassuring, but it says very little. The timeline obviously depends on the role: finding an accountant, a specialised welder and a vice-president are not the same search.

The employer can still ask a reasonable question: "when do you expect to present the first candidates?" The recruiter does not have to promise an impossible date. They can say a few days, two weeks, three weeks, or simply explain why the market makes the timeline hard to predict. That answer is already useful: it sets a realistic expectation on both sides.

Five questions can prevent a lot of bad expectations

Before handing over a mandate, an employer should at minimum understand five things:

1. How the fees are calculated and when they become payable.
2. What the replacement guarantee is.
3. Whether the mandate has to be exclusive.
4. How soon the first candidates can reasonably be presented.
5. What experience the agency has with this specific type of role.

Nothing especially complex. But those answers give a far clearer picture of the relationship, and they let the recruiter talk about what genuinely sets them apart.

Talk to a recruiter before the situation becomes urgent

Many companies approach an agency once everything else has failed. The posting has been up for six weeks. The team is tired. The manager wants someone immediately. At that point, the company is no longer buying only a recruitment service: it is buying time.

It can be far smarter to speak with a few specialised recruiters at the beginning of a difficult search, even before deciding to give them the mandate. Ask them about the market. Is the proposed salary realistic? Does the profile exist in the region? Are candidates with that experience available? What is likely to slow the search down? A recruiter working in that market every day can often answer these questions far faster than a company that is only now starting to hire for that profile.

A good relationship starts with two well-informed parties

The goal should not be to protect businesses from recruiters. It should be to build better relationships between businesses and recruiters. The employer needs to understand what they are buying. The recruiter needs to be able to explain what they bring. And both need to know the rules before the mandate begins.

We already accept this principle with insurance, real estate and many other professional services. Recruitment should be no different. A good recruiter can be one of the fastest ways for a company to reach a candidate market it would struggle to reach alone. That expertise deserves to be paid for. But like any significant professional expertise, it also deserves to be understood.

Comparing does not diminish a recruiter's value. Comparing well is often what makes it visible.

To find local businesses to work with, the BizzQuébec Quebec business directory is a good place to start.

About the author

David Zawisla is behind Recruiters Bidding for Business, a Canadian platform that lets employers put several recruiters in competition on the same mandate, with fees, guarantees and terms on the table from the start.