What is contingency recruitment?
Contingency recruitment is a fee model in which an agency is paid only if the client hires one of its candidates. No placement, no fee. The agency carries the whole cost of the search and is paid on the outcome.
It is the default arrangement for most permanent hiring in Belgium, and the reason is obvious from the client's side: there is no financial risk in starting. The consequences of that structure are where it gets interesting.
What does a contingency fee actually buy?
Access to a search, not a commitment to one. Because payment depends on being first to a hire, a contingency agency allocates effort towards the roles it is most likely to win. A role that is well briefed, realistically paid and quick to give feedback gets worked. A role competing against four other agencies with a slow interview process gets a first sweep and then attention moves elsewhere.
None of that is bad faith, it is arithmetic. A contingency agency runs a portfolio of roles against a fixed amount of recruiter time. The client is not buying a search so much as competing for one.
How does contingency differ from a retained search?
By who carries the risk and what that changes. In a retained search the client pays part of the fee up front, typically in stages tied to the delivery of a longlist, a shortlist and a placement. The agency is paid whether or not a hire happens, and works the role exclusively.
The trade is straightforward. Contingency means no cost until a hire but no guaranteed effort. Retained means committed cost and committed effort, plus exclusivity, which is why it is used for confidential, executive and genuinely scarce roles where a broad sweep would not work anyway. A hard role on contingency terms often fails quietly, and it usually fails without anyone being told it has been deprioritised.
When does contingency stop being the right model?
When the search requires work that only pays off if it is completed. Mapping a narrow market, approaching people who are not looking, or running a confidential replacement all require sustained effort with no guarantee of a hire, and a fee model that pays nothing for effort does not support them.
The practical signal is repetition. If a role has been open for months across several agencies, adding a sixth contingency supplier changes nothing, because each new one starts by working the same accessible candidates as the last. That is the point at which the model, not the market, is the constraint. Sparagus works both arrangements depending on the role, across its permanent, freelance and executive recruitment mandates.
