loader from loading.io

Moving across to a retained only model

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

Release Date: 04/08/2025

VOTC:  how to stand apart  become excellent and boost revenues show art VOTC: how to stand apart become excellent and boost revenues

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

Most recruiters want to stand apart from their competitors. Give their clients a positive reason to choose them. This is how anybody can do that. The good news is, it’s free, it’s quick to implement and no special skills are needed. All you need do is ask your clients what they really think of your people and your service. “Is that it? “ I hear you cry, “you got me all excited just for that?”. I promise it’s not what you think – it’s soooo much more. Our guest is Gemma Sleight, Group Marketing Director for FMC Talent. We’re going to be exploring VOTC, a powerful way...

info_outline
The secret power of Apex Client Care show art The secret power of Apex Client Care

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

Account management on its own is definitely NOT client care. It’s a part of it, but not the most important part. Great client care needs other ingredients. If you want to max out your client revenues and keep your competition at bay, you need an Apex Client Care system. It’s where the BIG MONEY is and why some companies keep growing whilst others falter. Let’s look at all four parts of such a client care system. ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT Getting vacancies, placing candidates and an escalation point for problems. DELIVERY How good you are at finding and vetting great candidates and placing...

info_outline
Using AI to find more candidates than the competition show art Using AI to find more candidates than the competition

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

Two things: we all need to find candidates and most of us use AI. But how can we bring the two together: use AI to find better candidates? This is the theme of our next MARShow, and we are delighted to welcome Vanessa Raath 🌍👩🏼‍🏫 onto the show to enlighten us. Those who don’t know Vanessa should just Google her – that should satisfy your curiosity. This is what we’ll be talking about: - ✅ What’s your AI gameplan? Without this you’ll only be partially successful. ✅ What tools can you use to find candidates ✅ Where should you look to find candidates ✅ How can you...

info_outline
Making Chat GPT really work for you show art Making Chat GPT really work for you

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

Lots of people are using Chat and other AIs to generate copy and search the web but this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to recruitment. In this edition of the  we are delighted to have Nitin Sharma as our guest. He will be exploring a wide range of uses that recruiters can put these powerful AIs tools to: - ✅ Coach you thru difficult business situations with clients ✅ Rate candidates against a vacancy from their CV and any of your notes and emails ✅ Provide powerful Boolean searches for any vacancy type. ✅ Bring job adverts to life, by creating engaging, SEO optimised...

info_outline
Alternative ways to find candidates your competition can’t show art Alternative ways to find candidates your competition can’t

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

We didn’t always have job boards, emails, and LinkedIn and yet we still placed people. Want to know how we did it and why you should care? Let’s start with the “why”. There are two reasons: - Firstly, your online sources are becoming increasingly expensive. Wouldn’t it be great to have an alternative? Secondly, if you only use LinkedIn and the job boards, you’re searching for talent in the same place as your competitors. Which means, you’ll come up with the same candidates they do – not a brilliant outcome. So, in this edition of the #MARShow, Kirsty and I will be...

info_outline
Moving across to a retained only model show art Moving across to a retained only model

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

On average, UK contingent recruiters get paid for 20% of their efforts. For retained recruiters it’s 98%. Fancy learning how to only do retained work? To be clear, switching to retained could boost your profits by 500% (just do the maths). Our next guest on the MARShow is Greg Elton of search firm Day-2, is 100% retained and has been for years. Some of you might be saying “he probably only does mega-deals which is why they are retained” Well, you’d be wrong. True, some of his placements are very chunky, but Greg maintains any salary over £40k can be on a retained basis, if...

info_outline
Start doing business in America show art Start doing business in America

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

Those UK-based recruiters who decide to start placing people in America, rarely switch back to the UK. there are plenty of reasons for that. 💥 The market is less crowded: 12,500 rec firms in the US to 30,000 in the UK (and the market is 4 times bigger). 💥 Almost all candidates are open to a chat, even if they aren’t active. 💥 The fees are larger than the UK and clients haggle about them less, plus counteroffers are rare 💥 US hirers are easier to speak to and they seem to like UK recruiters a lot. You get treated with respect. But surely, it’s a nightmare to start trading in...

info_outline
How to get your audience's attention show art How to get your audience's attention

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

The big battle for all of us these days is getting the attention of people we want to read something we’ve written: emails, posts, adverts and CVs. Many of your emails you know will be useful to the recipient, are deleted unread. You can have written the greatest LinkedIn post in the world but if people don’t read it, then it will die a death. Likewise, a fantastic job will only draw in candidates if the advert promoting it gets the attention of the right people. Or how about CVs? Hiring managers receive stacks of them in their inbox. How can you make yours stand out, so they take the time...

info_outline
How to get more sales emails read show art How to get more sales emails read

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

When used properly, email is still a very effective sales and marketing tool. But things are changing, and you need to know how. All the email providers are getting much stricter these days in their drive to reduce the amount of spam in your Inbox. BTW, spam is just unwanted email so if you send marketing emails the email providers may view you as a spammer! Google and Yahoo have recently changed their policies and others are bound to follow. You must keep your spam rate below 0.3%, else you could have your email account blocked. Real bummer. There are several rules that you need to follow to...

info_outline
How to create and sell an RPO service show art How to create and sell an RPO service

The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

Ever had that call from a client saying, “You’ve done a great job, but we’ve got an RPO in place now”? Well, you could be that RPO and here’s how. We welcome Jamie Stevenson as our guest because he offers full and micro RPOs to his clients. The benefits are enormous. You can often lock the client into a 12 month or longer contract and you’re in control of the vacancies during this time. Also, as the RPO supplier you’re often given a long lead-time on planned hires, which makes filling vacancies easier. During these difficult times it’s crucial to protect those clients who may...

info_outline
 
More Episodes

On average, UK contingent recruiters get paid for 20% of their efforts. For retained recruiters it’s 98%. Fancy learning how to only do retained work?

To be clear, switching to retained could boost your profits by 500% (just do the maths).

Our next guest on the MARShow is Greg Elton of search firm Day-2, is 100% retained and has been for years.

Some of you might be saying “he probably only does mega-deals which is why they are retained”

Well, you’d be wrong.

True, some of his placements are very chunky, but Greg maintains any salary over £40k can be on a retained basis, if pitched properly.

And that’s the rub, many recruiters just don’t pitch in the right way to win retained work.

In this show we’ll explore the following: -

✅ Which roles can be retained

✅ How to pitch to win retained deals

✅ How to overcome client objections

✅ The difference between retained and exclusive and why it matters

✅ What to do if the client is unconvinced

✅ How retained searches differ from contingent searches

Moving to retained can massively boost your profits, well of course it will if you get paid for every role you work.