Picked vs recruitment agencies

Category positioning

A recruiter sends six CVs

for ten grand.

15 to 30 percent of first-year salary is a four to ten thousand pound cheque per hire. Often more. We vet the entire inbound funnel for less than the cost of a single intro call. This is the most aggressive cost comparison on the page, and we will own that.

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Two cost structures

Per-hire commission, or per-candidate.

Agencies charge a commission on the hire. Standard terms are 15 to 25 percent of base salary in the UK and EU, 20 to 30 percent in the US for permanent roles. For a £60,000 hire, that is £9,000 to £15,000 on signing. The agency runs an outbound search, screens candidates by phone, sends a curated shortlist, and takes the fee on offer acceptance. If the hire leaves within 3 months, most agencies offer a partial refund or replacement search.

Picked has no per-hire fee. You pay 99 cents per AI-vetted candidate, capped at whatever you set. The shortlist for a typical role costs $50 to $200 in total. The agency commission for the same hire is two to three orders of magnitude higher. Agencies still have a role for senior, hard-to-reach, or specialised hires where inbound is not the channel. For most roles, the math has shifted.

The cost gap

£4k to £30k

Per hire, agency.

15 to 30 percent of first-year salary. £4k on a £25k role; £30k on a £150k role.

~$50 to $200

Per shortlist, Picked.

50 to 200 vetted candidates at 99 cents each. First 50 free on a new account's first role.

100x to 200x

The cost gap.

Per hire, on typical roles. The agency gap is even larger on senior roles where the commission percentage is the same on a much bigger base.

Capability table

Per capability, per channel.

Recruitment agency

picked.

Source passive candidates by phone / network

✓

✗

Screen candidates by phone

✓ (human)

✓ (AI)

Run assessments

Rarely

✓

Run first-round interviews

Sometimes

✓

Ranked shortlist

✓ (typically 3 to 6)

✓ (top 3 plus full ranked list)

Pricing

15% to 30% of first-year salary

$0.99 per AI-vetted candidate

Audit trail per decision

✗

✓

Candidate-owned profile

✗

✓

Replacement guarantee on early leavers

Usually 3 months

V3 outcome-based pricing tier (later)

Be specific

Four times agencies still win.

01

Executive search (VP, C-suite, board). Inbound is not the right channel. Use retained executive search.

02

Specialist senior hires where the candidate pool is small. A specific niche where the people you want know each other and would not respond to a job post. A good agency's network is real value.

03

Confidential searches. Replacing a known leader, opening a new function pre-announcement, anything where you cannot post publicly. Agencies handle confidentiality well.

04

Markets where inbound is structurally weak. Some regions, some functions, the inbound pipeline just is not there yet. An agency can find candidates that a job post will not.

For everything else, the per-candidate model is hard to argue with.

When to use each

Use both. Mostly use Picked.

Use a recruitment agency when...

●One of the four cases above applies.
●The cost of a six-month vacancy is much larger than the commission.
●You have a relationship with a specialist agency you trust on this function.

Use Picked when...

●Inbound applications are coming in and you do not have time to read them.
●The role is below VP and the candidate pool is reachable through job boards.
●You want a per-candidate cost that scales with the work, not a percentage of salary.

See other comparisons

vs an ATS·vs LinkedIn Recruiter·vs HireVue·vs Workable·vs Greenhouse·vs Ashby·vs Paradox·vs HackerRank·vs Workday

The math has shifted.

Post a role. Skip the commission.

Post a role →Run the spend calculator