Welcome to our series of posts in the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog: “Jeff Allen’s Collection Tip of the Week.”
Each week, we’ll highlight one collection tip from Allen, JD/CPC, the world’s leading placement lawyer.
Since 1975, Allen has collected more placement fees, litigated more trade secret cases, and assisted more placement practitioners than anyone else.
He’s also the author of 24 books and a regular columnist for The Fordyce Letter, one of the leading publications in the recruiting industry.
Below is this week’s collection tip for recruiters, courtesy of Jeff Allen.
What the client says:
“We hired the candidate in a lower classification.”
How the client pays:
A lower classification allows the client two ways to attempt avoiding the fee:
1. The job title is different from the one on the job order, and
2. The lower starting salary automatically translates into a lower fee.
It doesn’t take much to change the job duties to appear different from the job order. Statistically, this happens over half of the time, anyway. An employer doesn’t really know what the job will be until it hires someone.
If the candidate’s ego will be bruised by a lower title, a different one can always be used. The client just says you weren’t “engaged” to “perform” a search for that job.
Additionally, lowering the starting salary is a corporate shell game that is only stopped by fear. The candidate is likely to cooperate in concealing the promise to defer the other compensation—or even the salary itself.
What can you do? Exclude anything in your fee schedule that ties you to a title, and instantly review the actual job order at the actual annualized compensation with your employed, but still active, candidate.
The client will know you’ve done this, and invariably “clarifies” the “misunderstanding” with the candidate.
— — —
Know how to collect your well-earned fees? Test yourself! Visit Allen’s Placement Law website and click the “Placement Fee Collection Quiz” button. Allen can be reached via telephone at 310.559.6000 or via email at jeff@placementlaw.com.