Search vs contingent recruitment, what’s the difference?

In recruitment we often use the words contingent and search as approaches to finding your next hire, but do you really know the difference in the two approaches?

Think of contingent recruitment like school dinners.

You go to the lunch hall and are presented with (if you are lucky) a few different options for lunch. You have some choice, but it is limited. You might get lucky, and it might be your favourite, or it might be liver followed by rice pudding! Either way you need to pick something otherwise you are going to go hungry.

There’s nothing wrong with school dinners and some people really love them, but essentially you are getting what is available that lunchtime and picking the best option presented to you.

This is just like a contingent recruitment process. You are seeing who is available that day that has put their hand up either by applying for a job or actively working with a recruiter to find them a new role. You get CV’s and candidates to interview but are they Fish and Chips or are they liver?

When we talk about Search, it’s like having a private chef experience.

The process is completely tailored to you, they take the time to understand what you are looking to achieve from your event, your favourite foods and what you really don’t want! They will create a menu completely bespoke to you and even use their skills and knowledge to create dishes you wouldn’t have thought of or seen before. They might challenge what you thought you wanted to eat and suggest something so much tastier.

In a Search process we take the time to understand the problem you are looking to solve, what you are looking to achieve, what you think you need and use our skills, knowledge and experience to assist in this, challenging what you think and understanding the true qualities necessary to be successful in the role. This is a completely tailored and bespoke service for every role, opening up options that may not have been thought of or available before that then targets the best people in the market, not the best people who happen to be looking for a job that day.

In the end both approaches mean you get fed but only one gives you exactly what you want. Would you rather have school dinners or a private chef?

(PS if you do love rice pudding perhaps you just had a better experience of it at school than us!)

What’s your worst school dinner experience?

Have you ever been lucky enough to have a private chef?