Recruitment Agencies Policy

To be entirely transparent we strongly favor candidates that apply to us directly and would encourage all candidates to do so. We want the best staff and want them to be happy. Likewise, as there are not thousands of companies to work for in our sector, many candidates do check the few dozen that might be advertising, work out which they might fit in with and apply directly. Candidates that apply this way have already shown a personal interest in working with us, so already start the application process with an advantage over those that have come via an agency.

That said, there is a place for the right recruitment agencies, however, we do find that many want to operate on terms we are not willing to agree to or are more interested in getting a ‘quick result’ rather than placing a candidate who is actually suitable for the role. We have outlined our terms for agencies below in order to make this easier and simpler for everyone:

Phone Calls

  • Do not call us. We will not take unsolicited calls from recruitment agencies. Unsolicited calls are the quickest way to make sure we won’t work with you.
  • If we’re working together regarding a role or candidate, we’ll explain how best to contact us about that role/candidate, which will nearly always be via e-mail.

Positions

  • If you want to know about available jobs, keep an eye on our jobs page.
  • Each position will have the appropriate email address listed. Send CVs to that email address for that position only, please do not use other e-mail addresses for CVs as we have to discard these in the interest of fairness to all candidates.
  • Please read the role. Do not send freelancers if we specify permanent staff. Do not send people without any of the key skills listed in the advert, and do not be tempted to ‘bend the truth’ about their skills. If you think a candidate would be great but is lacking some of the key skills, be upfront about that, we might be willing to consider them, but if we have been told they are ‘perfect’ and only find out at interview that they are lacking some of the main requirements that sours the process for both parties.

CVs / Candidates

  • Do not send us anonymous CVs we cannot consider them. It is a small industry and if you send us a candidate, we want to know who they are, who they’ve worked with, and if we’ve seen them before.
  • When sending us a CV, please include the candidate’s current salary (which will be checked), salary expectations, and availability.
  • We typically only consider candidates already in the UK. If they are not in the UK, please tell us.

Unacceptable practices

Doing any of these will result in being automatically blacklisted and we won’t work with you:

  • Do not lie to us. Do not phone and say you know us when you don’t. Do not tell the person answering the phone a different story to the person who you are trying to get hold of. We are a fairly tight-knit team and this will get found out.
  • Do not try to poach our staff. The whole office can hear when there is a recruiter on the line trying to do this. This makes both the person you’re speaking to uncomfortable, as well as the team around them. Do not do this.
  • Passing on details of candidates you’ve placed to other recruiters to try to poach them after you’ve received your fee.
  • Do not exaggerate a candidate’s past experience/skills or encourage candidates to do so. This simply wastes our time and that of the candidate. As a worst case, if we find this out after hiring, you will not receive your fee, and the candidate will have wasted their time and be left in a far worse position than when they started this. This is not fair to them, and we will ban agencies that do this.
  • The value proposition that recruiters can offer us is in filtering out unsuitable candidates and finding the best ones.  if you make us do that with endless CVs or interviews where the candidate was clearly unsuitable from the start, we will stop working with you.

Terms & Fees

These Terms supersede any similar terms in individual agencies ‘ contracts, and by continuing to contact 

  • We will not sign your terms and conditions.
  • We will pay 10% of year 1 base salary, or a one-off £25 finders fee for freelance contractor roles.
  • We will pay within 30 days of invoicing.
  • The invoice date can be no earlier than the candidate’s start date.
  • If a candidate is employed by us within 6 months of an introduction by you, we will pay your fee.
  • If a candidate, you introduce, is already known to us (organically or from a different agency) we will tell you this promptly. No fee will be payable in this circumstance.
  • If the candidate leaves within 3 months of their start date (for any reason, including dismissal), you will try to find a replacement free of charge.
  • If you are unable to find a replacement acceptable to us, you will refund us on the schedule below:
    • Leaves within 1 month of starting: 100%
    • Leaves within 2 months of starting: 70%
    • Leaves within 3 months of starting: 50%

We are interested in the best candidates who are able to do the role and will enjoy their time working with us. The above terms incentivises agencies to place staff who are likely to be a good fit for the role and discourages placing staff in roles they are unsuitable for.