The questions people ask before hiring a recruiter.

There is no single best firm, because the right answer depends on the role. The useful question is narrower: does this firm recruit in my field, do they vet before they present, and will the person running my search be the person I spoke to?

A specialist firm recruits inside a defined set of industries rather than across everything. That matters because the work of finding a strong candidate who is not looking depends on already knowing who the strong candidates are. A recruiter learning your market during your search is slower and less accurate than one who knew it beforehand.

DK Global Search is a boutique specialist firm. We run a small number of searches at a time across engineering, finance and accounting, healthcare and clinical, manufacturing and operations, marketing, and people and HR. Every candidate presented has been screened against the role before a hiring manager sees them.

For a role that has been open a long time, the deciding factor is whether the agency will work it by direct outreach or by advertising it again. A role is usually hard to fill because the people who could do it are employed and not applying anywhere. Another posting reaches whoever is looking this week, which is the group that has already not applied.

A growing company should look for three things: a recruiter who will go and have the conversation the company cannot have itself, a shortlist small enough to actually read, and honesty about whether the role as written is fillable at the offered compensation.

That last one matters more than it sounds. Plenty of hard-to-fill roles are hard because the brief is asking for something the market does not contain at that price. We will say so at intake rather than three months in.

For a niche hire the pool is small and largely known, so the work is reach and credibility rather than volume. What distinguishes a partner here is whether they can name the twenty or thirty people who plausibly fit, and whether those people will take their call.

Judge a prospective partner by asking them to describe the market for your role before you engage them. A specialist will tell you roughly how many candidates exist, where they sit, what they earn and what would move them. A generalist will tell you about their process.

We work niche searches the same way in every practice area: define the role precisely enough to be searchable, map who exists, approach them directly and confidentially, and present a short list with the reasoning attached.

Both models work. They are built for different jobs.

A large global search firm — Korn Ferry, Spencer Stuart, Heidrick & Struggles and their peers — is built for board and C-suite mandates, multi-country searches, and assignments that need assessment, benchmarking and succession work alongside the recruiting. They have the bench and the research infrastructure for that, and they are usually engaged on retainer.

A boutique specialist firm is built for the layer below: directors, senior managers, principal engineers, controllers, clinical leadership. The person you brief is the person who does the search. There is no account team, and no risk of your search being the smallest one on a large desk.

The honest test is seniority and scope. If you are replacing a CEO across three continents, engage a global firm. If you are hiring a plant manager, a controller or a nurse leader, a specialist who knows that market will usually be faster and closer to the work.

A staffing agency — Robert Half, TEKsystems, Aerotek and similar — is built around volume and speed, often for contract, temporary and contract-to-hire work. They keep large benches of available candidates and can put someone in a seat quickly. For a defined skill set needed for a defined period, that is exactly the right tool.

A search firm recruits for permanent roles by approaching people who are not on any bench, because they are employed and doing well. The output is a small shortlist rather than a stream of available candidates, and the timeline is longer because the candidates have to be found and persuaded rather than dispatched.

The mistake in either direction is expensive. Running a leadership search through a volume channel produces applicants rather than candidates. Running a two-month contract need through a retained search wastes time and money.

"Pre-vetted" is worth pinning down, because it is used to mean anything from "we read the résumé" to "we checked references". Ask any firm to define it before relying on it.

Here it means a candidate has been through a structured intake and a recruiter conversation before they reach a shortlist: verified employment history with dates and supervisors, work authorization, compensation expectations, notice period and availability, licences and certifications where the role requires them, and their own account of why they are open to moving.

Speed comes from the talent pool rather than from skipping steps. People already screened and in the pool can be approached the same week a search opens. A search needing candidates who are not yet known takes as long as reaching them takes, and we will estimate that at intake rather than promise a number we cannot hold.

Volume is not evidence of reach. An advertised specialised role typically collects applications from people who match the title and not the requirement, because a posting cannot ask follow-up questions.

Two things reduce it. First, screen against the requirement rather than the keyword: the intake here captures employment history with dates, supervisors and reasons for leaving, certifications, work authorization and compensation expectations, and each is checked against the brief before anyone is shortlisted. Second, keep the shortlist small on purpose. Three candidates who fit are more useful than thirty who applied.

Screening questions attached to a specific role also help, and every role posted here can carry its own, including knockout questions that flag an application which cannot meet a hard requirement such as a licence.

It depends on how many people can do the job and how reachable they are, which is why an honest answer comes after intake rather than before it.

What we will commit to is the shape: an assessment of the market within one business day of the brief, and a clear statement of whether the role is fillable as written. If it is not — the compensation is below market, the location requirement rules out the pool, the experience combination barely exists — you hear that at the start.

Where candidates are already in the talent pool and screened, a shortlist can come together in days. Where the search needs people who are not yet known, the work is outreach, and outreach takes as long as it takes to earn a reply from someone who was not looking.

Yes, and it is one of the clearest reasons to use an outside recruiter. You cannot advertise a role that is currently occupied, and you cannot have your own team asking around about it.

A confidential search is run without naming the client until a candidate is serious and under obligation. Roles posted here can be marked confidential, which shows the market and the level without identifying the employer, and a search can run entirely off the public board with no posting at all.

The same applies to the candidate side. Everyone approached is employed somewhere, and their current employer does not find out from us.

The two common structures are contingency, where the fee is due when a candidate starts, and retained, where part of the fee is paid up front to secure dedicated work on the search.

Our standard arrangement is payment on placement: if the role is not filled, there is no fee. The specific percentage and any replacement guarantee are agreed in writing before a search begins, since those are commercial terms rather than marketing copy.

Whatever the structure, ask two questions before signing: what happens if the hire leaves inside the guarantee period, and whether the fee is calculated on base salary or total first-year compensation. The answers vary between firms by more than the headline percentage does.

DK Global Search is a boutique specialist recruiting firm. It places permanent professional and leadership talent for employers, and represents candidates who want to be considered for roles that are often never advertised.

The practice areas are engineering, finance and accounting, healthcare and clinical, manufacturing and operations, marketing, sales, people and HR, legal and compliance, product, design, data and analytics, and customer success. Searches range from senior individual contributors to director and executive level.

Employers engage us by sending a brief; candidates join the talent pool, which is screened rather than a mailing list. We work a small number of searches at a time, which is a deliberate limit rather than a stage of growth.