Every recruitment agency claims deep sector expertise, rigorous screening, and a genuine partnership approach. The claims are indistinguishable, which makes choosing between them difficult.
These are the questions that produce different answers.
"Who will actually run this search?"
On senior roles especially, the person selling is often not the person delivering. Ask who will do the work, how much experience they have in your sector, and how many other searches they are running concurrently.
A recruiter carrying twelve roles will prioritise the easiest ones. That may not be yours.
"What does your screening actually involve?"
"Rigorous screening" means nothing. Ask specifically: does a recruiter interview every candidate before submission, or are some forwarded from a database? What is verified — work history, qualifications, references — and at what stage?
In regulated sectors, ask what they check and how. "We verify credentials" should be followed by which credentials, against which register.
"What is your replacement guarantee, and what does it exclude?"
Most agencies offer one. The exclusions are what matter.
A guarantee that excludes redundancy, restructure, performance, and anything the client contributed to covers almost nothing. Ask for the exclusions in writing before you sign, not when you are trying to claim.
"Show me a search that went badly"
The most revealing question you can ask. Everyone has case studies about the searches that worked.
What you want to know is what they do when it does not. Did they tell the client early that the salary was below market? Did they come back and renegotiate the brief, or keep submitting candidates who were never going to land? An agency that cannot describe a failure honestly is either inexperienced or not being straight with you.
"What will you tell me that I do not want to hear?"
A good recruiter will tell you your salary is uncompetitive, your process is too slow, or your specification is unrealistic. That information is most of the value.
An agency that agrees with everything is optimising for the relationship rather than the outcome, and you will find out at week eight when the shortlist still has not landed.
"How do you source?"
Vague answers here are informative. You are looking for a specific description of how they find people who are not applying to job adverts — because the candidates you most want are generally not applying to job adverts.
If the answer is a database and a job board, you are paying a percentage for something you could do yourself.
"What happens to candidate data?"
Increasingly important, and worth asking. Where is it stored, who has access, how long is it kept, and what happens when a candidate asks for it to be deleted? An agency without a clear answer is a liability attached to your brand.
Things that are not signals
Office size and brand recognition. Neither correlates with the quality of the recruiter assigned to your role.
A large database. Everyone has one. The question is whether anyone has spoken to the people in it recently.
Sector specialism claimed on a website. Ask them to name the last three roles they filled in your sector, and who the hiring managers were. The answer, or the hesitation, tells you plenty.
The arrangement question
Decide whether you want one agency or several before you start.
Several agencies on contingency creates urgency and widens the net, but each gives you less attention and you may see the same candidates submitted twice.
One agency, properly briefed, gives you a committed search and a single point of accountability — but only if they are good, which is why these questions matter.
Where to start
Pick three agencies and ask all of them the failure question. The answers will separate them faster than anything on their websites.
If you are weighing up a staffing partner, Sizanid is happy to answer any of the above directly. [Start a conversation](/find-talent) — including the parts you would rather we were honest about.
