A permanent-placement agency sells placements on contingency: fee agreements, two pipelines, and a long gap before the first check clears. This page holds the course's rates, scripts, and rules in one place.
First clients in a recruitment agency
The first-ten method runs on public job postings: every posting is budget approved and a hiring manager assigned, and a posting up for weeks is a nervous manager. Add venture-backed companies sixty to ninety days past a funding round, and the question that ends every candidate call, where else are you interviewing, which names warm companies for free. The operator rhythm is outreach to about a hundred potential clients a week, batched by niche, recycled every three months because March's silence can be June's emergency. The first-touch script compresses to: saw the role, it has been up a month, I place this type in this niche and have candidates who fit, worth twenty minutes, and an exit ramp that makes replying safe. Replies skew toward the fourth touch, not the first. The warm network signs fastest of all: tell former colleagues plainly that if a role is dragging, you want to be on the short list.
Pricing in a recruitment agency
The pricing method lands on direct-hire fees of 15 to 30 percent of first-year base salary, 20 percent the most common. At a $90,000 salary that is $13,500 to $22,500 per placement. Contingency is how every new agency starts; retained search at roughly 25 to 35 percent of compensation is a graduation sold on track record, not a starting point. Throughput is operator consensus, not a promise: one to two placements a month for a competent full-cycle recruiter, three above average. Three clauses defend the fee: guarantee windows of 30, 60, or 90 days (90 most common, and fight for free replacement over refund), payment at net-10 from the candidate's start date stretching to thirty, and candidate ownership for six to twelve months so a client cannot quietly hire your submission in month four. The course's flat-fee caution: a fixed fee caps you and prices you like a vendor.
Rules in a recruitment agency
The legal framework plus one trade-specific check: there is no federal recruiting license, but roughly half the states regulate employment agencies, and the state that matters can be your client's, not yours. Before the first fee agreement, search your own state's Department of Labor and Secretary of State sites for "employment agency license." Never charge candidates; employer-paid placement is the lightly regulated side, and candidate-side fees are what these laws police. Three documents carry the practice: the fee agreement (signed before any submission; the ASA/NAPS model agreement is the starting template), candidate-data hygiene, and clean LLC paperwork. One hour of lawyer time on the fee agreement is the course's entire recommended legal budget. E&O insurance averages about $82 a month, bought the first time procurement asks for a certificate.
Money in a recruitment agency
The money system wraps the longest payout lag in this catalog: signing, sourcing, interviewing, notice periods, and net-10 terms mean the optimistic path to a first cleared fee is three months, and one r/recruiting poster took seven. Budget several zero-placement months in year one, a thin December, and six months of runway minimum. The lean stack opens for roughly $100-600 (LLC $35-500 by state, EIN free, free ATS and LinkedIn tiers to start) with monthly burn under $300, closer to $500 once you add LinkedIn Recruiter Lite at about $170 or a paid ATS seat near $25.
First hire in a recruitment agency
The course's first hire is a junior recruiter or researcher who takes the sourcing half of the desk, multiplying throughput under your fee agreements while you keep clients and closing. The classic structure worth knowing is the desk model, business development recruiters owning clients and delivery recruiters owning searches, and split placements (a fifty-fifty fee with a firm holding the other half) borrow capacity before any hire does. The trigger math itself lives in the first-hire module.
Every figure here is compressed from the full course, where each number carries its source.