By the time you're choosing between recruitment agencies, everyone in front of you sounds much the same.

Sector knowledge. Thorough process. Great network.

You can't test a word of it in a meeting, and none of it costs anything to say.

A number is different, because a number is specific. You can open it up. Ours are as easy to type as anybody else's, so they aren't proof on their own. But you can interrogate them, and what happens when you do tells you plenty.

So ask for these four. Then ask what each one actually covers.

Across our business:

• 79% of the roles we take on, we fill
• 95% of the people we place are still there 18 months later
• 92% of our clients come back for their next hire
• 881 clients

All four are whole business, every division, not one team in a good quarter. Worth checking, because that's where these figures usually get flattering.

What each one is actually telling you

A fill rate is only as good as what's counted in it.
Ours is 79%, and that number counts every role we said yes to. If we took one on and couldn't fill it, it still sits in there. So does a role the client put on hold halfway through and never restarted. An agency quoting you something close to 100% isn't getting a better result than that. It means they're counting differently, and you're entitled to ask how.

Retention is the bit the fee doesn't cover.
If someone leaves at month four, we've already been paid and the guarantee has run out. On paper we've lost nothing. What we've actually lost is the next hire you'd have given us, because nobody goes back to the agency whose last placement walked out after four months.

Repeat business is the one clients vote on with a budget.
A testimonial tells you how somebody felt on a good day. We ask for those and we're glad to have them. But 92% coming back tells you what a client did next, with their own money, at a point where they could have gone anywhere.

Client count says whether the other three mean anything.
A good fill rate across a dozen clients is mostly luck. Across 881 companies it starts to describe how a business actually runs.

Three more questions, and these are the ones where answers really do differ

Ask what happens if the hire doesn't work out, and get the terms in writing, not in a sentence on a call. Guarantee periods vary a lot. How long it runs, whether it's a replacement or a rebate, whether it tapers. Ours is a three-month replacement and rebate guarantee.

Ask whether the fee moves if the salary moves. Percentage fees are the norm, so stretching an offer to land your first choice quietly costs you twice. Fixed fees agreed upfront don't do that.

And ask who's actually doing the searching, because the person selling to you often isn't the one on the phone at seven on a Tuesday.

You'll still be taking somebody's word for all four. Ours included. What you're testing is whether they can tell you what sits inside a number without going away to check.

Happy to look at whatever sales role you've got open and tell you honestly whether it's one we'd take on.

Book a call here. If the answer's no, we'll say so on the call.