QUESTION: Mike, I just found a backdoor hire. We presented the person seven months ago. The company put the opening on hold and hired them last month. I found out the candidate got a hold of us just to let us know as a courtesy they were getting a job. I got a hold of the HR Department to congratulate them and verified the starting salary and start to invoice them. The response was: You did not really do anything to fill this position. We had to do the whole thing ourselves. You talked about reference checking. They want to discount the fee. What are your thoughts?
Client Accountability and Contracts
One, the fact that they want to pay you means, at some level, they know they messed up. Sometimes, what happens is they will even deflect to that. What I do in those situations is I get them on the phone, or I get them on Zoom, and I would pull up the contract that they signed, and I would say:
“As ours said, the client agrees that any candidate presented, if hired within 12 months of initial presentation, the client owes us the fee.”
In certain situations, bigger companies, people might have been presented more than once. This is pretty black and white because they are kind of saying, you did not help, which is usually their out. They do not want to pay the fee. They are willing to pay something to make you go away.
Again, I get them on the phone and say, “You hired this person on (blank) date, seven months after we presented. They went through the interview process, and you put the position on hold.”
“Yeah, but we had to manage the whole process.”
“You prevented me from doing my work by not informing me that you had reopened the position.”
Communicating Effectively with Clients
What I want you to do in this situation is to avoid going into the 7,000 rat holes they will try to take you down. I will go: “Where in our contract…?”
Because they will go: “Buh, buh, buh. You did not do the work. You should have done more.”
I go, “(1) You did not allow me, and (2) Where does it even say in our contract that I have to manage the hiring process? Do you have the agreement in front of you? I can email it to you right now. I am going to read.”
Become a broken record on reading the part of the agreement that applies to them. “Candidate presented within one year, offer, pay the fee. Where are we outside of that boundary, Mr. or Ms. Client?”
If they were an excellent client, they would not have backdoor hired. But let’s assume it was an honest mistake. They should pay the fee. For me, it is about the integrity of the agreement.
Reinforcing Your Value
I remember a couple of times when I said, let’s look at some of these assignments I did a lot of work on. “Remember the controller search in Dallas?”
“Yeah.”
“Remember I sent you four candidates, and you went to finals with two? You had multiple interviews, and then you filled the position through an employee referral.”
“Yeah.”
“How much money did you send me?”
They are like, “None.”
“I did like 98% of the work because Joe Blow was ready to accept. Did I call you up and ask you for money on that because I did all of this work?”
Well, “No.”
“Because it was outside of the boundaries of our agreement. Right? You did not do anything unethical.”
“If we want to restructure our agreement for these scenarios where I get paid on every search, whether I fill it or not, if you want to open that dialogue, I am willing to do that.”
All I do to avoid getting defensive is just read the clauses of the contract. It usually takes doing that thing three times for them to get the message that you are not giving up on this. You are digging in.
P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are ways I can help you grow your recruitment business:
1. Join the Recruiter Think Tank and connect with firm owners who are scaling, too. It’s our Facebook community where smart recruiters learn to make more money and get more freedom. https://www.facebook.com/groups/there…
2. Work with me and my team privately
And if you ever want to get some 1:1 help, we can jump on the phone for a quick call and brainstorm how to get you more leads, more placements, and more time. http://go.therecruiteru.com/audit
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