Hi Danny,

I have an Oil & Gas CEO who is doing a 500M startup, he’s looking at hiring an initial 20-30 employees and move forward from there. As a stand-alone recruiter like myself, what would you do right now knowing this, if the potential of losing business was there by not getting to all of these placements? (And of course I know I’ll only get a percentage of them anyway?) Would you partner with another search firm or something else? Quite frankly I do not have the capitol currently to hire several other recruiters right now, and (FYI) the O&G sector is absolutely on life support from a recruiter’s prospective.

My Response:

I have no doubt you could negotiate a deal where you get the 20-30 openings, and knowing, as you rightly surmise, that they won’t really fill them all through you, just fill as many as you can as fast as you can.

But not in a start up?!! Death move. We do a lot of emerging technology companies work, and when they first start up, all juiced up on optimism and Angel or VC enhanced checkbooks, they will put serious pressure on you. They will want to see a high volume of resumes, and they won’t buy that “I’m all about quality” riff. I NEVER get calls from CEO’s saying, “you send us crappy resumes,” but I routinely get, “we’re not seeing enough resumes, aren’t you guys as good as advertised?” (Uh, no, we’re not, no one is.)

So, yeah, you need to take this on with search partners. Without knowing whether it is all direct hire or contract, it is hard for me to give you specific direction. If contract, I’d call Alleanza Partners, and their CEO, John Frank.(www.alleanzapartners.com) Good people, fair split and quality work. If it is direct hire, you probably know O&G players better than anyone, call their CEO’s and while operating from strength, meaning you control the flow of candidates and all contact with the client, don’t be frugal! They have their own searches, so if you make the split unfavorable, they won’t put any energy in, and you’re back to “where are my resumes?” Even if you get retainer money, split it with them up front. They need to see this as windfall. As a solo shop, there’s plenty of profit in it for you.

It is a great opportunity, and I wish you all the best with it, let me know how it comes out!