Part of the recruitment agency evaluation center cluster. This is educational, operational guidance that connects to the wider site — the employee lifecycle, employer operations, metrics and templates.
It helps you decide; it does not rank or recommend any agency.
Why it matters
Recruitment partners shape who you hire and what you spend, and the wrong fit is costly and slow to unwind. A requirements-first evaluation keeps the choice objective and the relationship well-governed.
The framework is the value — not a ranking.
Key concepts
- Contingent, retained, RPO or hybrid.
- Risk and cost trade-offs of each.
- Fit to your hiring volume.
- Governance per model.
Operational framework
- Define your requirements and what success looks like.
- Set weighted evaluation criteria up front.
- Shortlist on fit to your roles and process.
- Pilot a brief or engagement before committing.
- Decide, then set the contract, governance and SLAs.
Governance & risk
- Which model fits which need.
- How each is governed.
- SLAs appropriate to the model.
- Review and switching criteria.
Common challenges
- Wrong model for the need.
- Mixed incentives.
- Weak governance per model.
- No switching criteria.
Best practices
- Match the model to the need.
- Align incentives.
- Govern each model appropriately.
- Review and switch when needed.
Common mistakes
- One model for everything.
- Misaligned incentives.
- No governance.
- No review.
Measure this with the time to fill metric, put it into practice with the recruitment planning template, and run it as a system via recruitment budgeting.
Export, edit and share documents
The documents, policies and templates this involves can be exported, edited, signed, stored and shared as PDFs with the HELPERG PDF Editor.
Need hiring support?
Tell us what roles you need to fill. We can help connect you with recruitment and staffing partners that match your hiring requirements — HR helper group is a matching platform, not a recruitment agency, and makes no placement guarantees.
Free, printable HR resources
Practical, ungated resources to put this into action — no signup.