What buyers ask AI before choosing a recruitment agency

Hiring managers ask an assistant three things before they contact an agency: what this service normally costs and how it is structured, which kind of agency fits the role they are filling, and how to tell a specialist from a CV forwarding shop. Those are all answerable in writing, and most agency websites answer none of them.

The questions, in the words buyers use

• "how are recruitment agency fees calculated in India"
• "retained search or contingency for a leadership hire"
• "is an agency worth it if we already have a careers page"
• "agency that hires non IT roles, plant and production staff"
• "how do I write a brief so the agency sends relevant CVs"
• "what is a reasonable replacement guarantee period"
• "contract staffing versus permanent hiring, what changes for payroll and compliance"
• "how do I check if an agency really places in my sector"
• "what should be in a recruitment agreement before we sign"

The eighth question is the whole game. The buyer has been burned by an agency that claimed a specialism it did not have, and they are asking an assistant to help them tell the difference.

What a good answer looks like

Put your terms in public. The fee model, the replacement period, the payment trigger, the exclusivity position. You lose nothing, because a serious buyer asks in the first call anyway, and you gain the only page on this subject that an assistant can cite with a name attached.

Prove the specialism with market knowledge, not claims. A page about hiring embedded firmware engineers should discuss where those people currently work, what they ask about in interviews, and why offers fall through. Knowledge is the proof.

Be clear about contract staffing. If you do it, explain who is the employer on record, how statutory compliance is handled and what the client still owns. This is a compliance question wearing a hiring question's clothes, and a clear answer wins serious buyers.

Say what you will not take. Roles below a level, cities you do not cover, sectors you do not know. It reads as confidence and it filters your inbox.

The seven clauses a buyer is really asking about

Most of the questions above are questions about an agreement nobody has shown them. Publish a plain explanation of these seven and you have answered a week of enquiries.

• The fee basis, and precisely what the percentage applies to: fixed pay, or total cost to company including variable and allowances.
• The payment trigger, on offer, on joining, or after a period of service.
• The replacement or guarantee clause, including whether it is a replacement or a refund and what events it covers.
• The duplicate candidate rule, meaning what happens if the client already had that CV, and how long a prior submission counts for.
• Ownership of candidate data, which matters more now that the data protection law applies to it.
• Non solicitation, meaning whether you may approach the client's employees for another client.
• Exclusivity and notice, including how a role is withdrawn and what happens to candidates already in process.

What separates a specialist from a CV forwarder, in writing

A buyer cannot verify a claim, so give them evidence they can test on a call.

• Market maps for a function: which companies are the usual source of that talent and which are the usual destination.
• Named tools, certifications and stacks that genuinely matter for the role, and the ones that sound important and do not.
• A description of the screen, meaning what you actually test before a CV reaches the client.
• Offer drop reasons for that function, honestly listed, because every specialist knows them and no generalist can name them.
• Compensation drivers, what moves a band up or down, without publishing a salary figure you cannot stand behind.
• A realistic process timeline, with the stage that usually causes delay named.

The questions agencies avoid that are worth answering

• Why did your last three searches in this function fail?
• How many open roles does one of your recruiters carry?
• Do you show candidates the client's name before submitting?
• What do you do with a candidate's data if they are not placed?
• Will you tell us if the salary band is unrealistic for the market?

The last one is the answer that wins trust fastest, because a buyer who has been fed hope by three agencies remembers the one that told them the band was wrong.

A worked example

An HR head at a pharmaceutical company in Hyderabad needs a regulatory affairs manager and has failed to fill it for four months. She asks an assistant how to tell whether an agency really places in her sector. The answer gives sensible generic advice about references and case studies and cites two international HR blogs.

What would have been more useful is a page that says: for regulatory affairs hiring in India, ask the agency which submission markets the candidate has handled, whether they know the difference between a candidate who has compiled dossiers and one who has only reviewed them, which companies in Hyderabad and Ahmedabad are the usual source of these people, and what the typical notice period problem is. That page can only be written by a firm that does this work.

The agency that publishes it does not get a recommendation immediately. It gets something better: it becomes the source the assistant uses to explain how to judge an agency in that sector, and the HR head reads a page written by exactly the kind of firm she is looking for.

Where you are probably missing

Most agency sites have a list of industries, a stock photograph and a form. There is no terms page, no function page and no evidence. Meanwhile the fee and process questions are being answered by HR blogs and by your competitors' content, so those are the sources an assistant uses.

The other gap is off site, and it is candidate reviews. The companion page on how a recruitment agency gets recommended by AI deals with that side, and this page does not repeat it.

What this does not cover

Publishing terms does not make a bad agency good. If a recruiter carries thirty roles and sends unscreened CVs, a clear terms page brings the buyer to a disappointing experience faster.

It also does not help with roles where the client will hire directly whatever happens. A well known employer with a strong careers page and an internal team does not need an agency for a mid level role, and the honest page says so. That honesty costs you the enquiries you would have lost anyway.

And it does not address candidate attraction, which is a separate job with a separate audience. A page written for a hiring manager is not the page that persuades a passive candidate to reply to you. No one can guarantee a place in an assistant's answer.

Common questions

Is an agency worth it when we already have a careers page and a recruiter?

For roles where applications arrive on their own, usually not. Agencies earn their fee on roles where the right person is not applying to anybody: narrow functions, senior roles, confidential replacements, locations where the talent pool is thin, and situations where speed matters more than cost. The honest version of this answer, written by an agency, is one of the most persuasive pages an agency can publish.

What should be in a recruitment agreement?

The fee basis and what it is calculated on, the payment trigger, the replacement or refund clause, the duplicate candidate rule and how long a prior submission counts, candidate data handling, non solicitation, exclusivity, the notice position and what happens to candidates in process when a role is withdrawn. Disputes almost always come from the fee basis, the duplicate rule and the replacement clause.

How do I brief an agency so the CVs are relevant?

Give the must have criteria separately from the nice to have ones, give the real salary band rather than a placeholder, name two companies whose people would be a good fit and two that would not, describe who the person reports to and what the first six months look like, and say how many interview rounds there are and who is in them. Agencies send poor CVs mostly because the brief did not distinguish essential from desirable.

What changes with contract staffing?

The employment relationship. The staffing firm is usually the employer on record, which makes it responsible for payroll, statutory contributions and the associated filings, while the client is the principal employer with its own registration and oversight obligations under contract labour rules. The commercial model changes too, from a one time fee to a markup on cost to company. A client that does not understand this division is taking on a compliance exposure it has not priced.

How long should filling a mid level role take?

The honest answer names the stages rather than the total: how long to build a shortlist, how long the client takes to give interview slots, how many rounds, how long the offer approval takes internally, and the candidate's notice period. Most delays are on the client's side, and an agency that says so politely, in writing, is telling the truth in a way that helps the buyer plan.

Can we ask an agency to work exclusively?

You can, and it is a trade. Exclusivity buys you focus and usually a better rate or a retained arrangement, and it costs you the parallel search. It works best on roles that need real market mapping and worst on urgent volume hiring. Whatever you agree, put the duration in writing along with what happens if nobody is hired.

What to do first

Four pages in the first fortnight: how we charge and our replacement terms, how to brief us, one function page for your strongest desk, and one page on contract staffing compliance if you offer it. Then a second function page each month.

This is work a delivery lead can write from memory, which is the point: it is knowledge you already have and have never written down.