Pricing Strategies for Recruitment Companies: An Interview With Jon Brooks
This week’s post and podcast are about recruitment pricing strategies and how to communicate the real value of your services. This podcast is one of our expert interviews, where I got an opportunity to speak to Jon Brooks, who has a unique position in our industry. He’s the only person in the world who specialises exclusively in helping recruitment companies with pricing strategies.
We covered everything from why 66% of recruitment work goes unpaid on contingent models to the surprising truth about winning retained business. If you’ve ever struggled to justify your fees or wondered how to move away from contingent work, this conversation is packed with practical insights you can use immediately.
Understanding The Value Problem in Recruitment
Jon started his career at Reed, one of the UK’s biggest recruitment brands, working directly with founder Sir Alec Reed. That experience taught him something fundamental about business: when you create different services, you need to price them differently.
If you price everything the same way, it looks the same to your clients.
Here’s the thing: Price isn’t just a number. It’s a signal.
It positions what you do. If you launch a new service and charge the same as your existing offering, clients will think it’s just fancy words with no real difference. But when your price reflects genuine value, it helps define and position what you’re actually selling.
Jon worked with a management consultancy that specialised in value and pricing. The consultants had never worked in recruitment before. They came from law firms, global engineering companies, and manufacturing businesses.
That outside perspective was gold. It showed him how other industries think about pricing and how those principles could work for recruitment consultants sitting with clients.
He left Reed about six or seven years ago to build his consultancy. The timing was questionable (just before COVID), but he’s been helping recruitment owners ever since.
Interestingly, every agency must get pricing right, yet hardly anyone focuses on it properly. We all learn on the job, but research and knowledge from other sectors can make a huge difference.
Why Recruitment Has a Future Despite AI
We talked about AI and technology and whether recruitment has a future. It’s a fair question. LinkedIn allows anyone to find anyone, yet recruitment and search businesses have become more valuable since it became mainstream.
Fees have increased, and we are more important than ever.
AI is bringing massive change, that’s certain. We’re already seeing AI-generated applications overwhelm hiring managers. However, recruitment companies have always adapted to technology shifts. Think about the journey from motorbike couriers driving CVs around London to digital databases, job boards, and LinkedIn. People predicted the end of recruiters; companies found new ways to add value each time.
Here’s Jon’s prediction: AI tools that help manage candidate applications won’t be cheap. Individual hiring managers in most companies won’t get access to the best solutions because they only recruit occasionally.
It’s too expensive to give every manager premium AI tools. However, a smart recruitment company can invest in these solutions and spread the cost across hundreds of clients.
That’s what companies have always done brilliantly. You invest in LinkedIn licences because you use them constantly across multiple clients.
The same principle will apply to AI recruitment tools.
Companies will have access to better technology, processes, and ways to cut through the noise. Your value will be in helping clients through the complexity that AI is creating.
The Real Difference Between Contingent and Retained
Let’s discuss the truth of contingent recruitment. Jon laid it out clearly: with a typical success rate of 33%, you’re not getting paid for your work 66% of the time. That’s devastating for your business and your self-worth. It affects how you value yourself and your services.
But here’s the mistake most companies make when trying to move to retained work: They sell the retainer and list all the benefits of retained recruitment. They’re doing the right thing, tactically focusing on benefits rather than features, but strategically, they’re getting it completely wrong.
A retainer is just a payment schedule. There’s no intrinsic value in when money gets paid. The value is in your service, not in the timing of payments. If you explain why retention is better for you, clients will immediately see through it. They’re not interested in what’s better for your business.
So, what’s the answer? Create demand for your service, not for the retainer. When clients desperately want to work with you, they’ll pay whatever you ask. They’ll work to your terms. It becomes a non-issue.
Jon gave a brilliant example. When he was putting together his book, he’d seen a designer whose work he loved online. He thought, “If I ever make a book, that’s the person I want.”
When the time came, he was willing to pay pretty much anything within his budget. He would have paid upfront, in instalments, however the designer wanted. The demand was so high that payment terms didn’t matter.
That’s what you need to create with your clients. Get them to the point where they say, “Yes, I really want to work with you. How can I work with you?” Then it’s easy to say: “You pay some fee now, some more later, and here’s how it works.” They’ll say yes because they’ve already decided they want to work with you.
Think about any supplier you’ve desperately wanted to work with. Maybe it was a particular consultant, a software provider, or a service you’d heard brilliant things about. When you finally got to work with them, did you quibble about payment terms? Probably not. You were just pleased they had space for you. That’s the position you want to be in with your clients.
How To Actually Demonstrate Your Value
Most recruitment companies already have huge value within them. The problem isn’t that the value doesn’t exist. The problem is that clients can’t see it. You’re not presenting it in a way that makes it obvious.
Jon broke this down into a simple framework. First, you need to understand your value. What do you do that’s genuinely different and better?
Then, you need to map that value to your clients’ concerns.
What keeps them awake at night? What problems are they trying to solve? Finally, and this is the crucial bit, you must present it so that clients can immediately understand and recognise that value.
Think about your typical client conversation. You might be brilliant at finding passive candidates, understanding company culture, and managing complex stakeholder processes. But they won’t see the value if you’re not articulating those capabilities in language that resonates with your client’s situation. They’ll see another recruiter offering to find them people.
Here’s what changes everything: specificity. Instead of saying, “We have a great network,” say, “We placed three finance directors in your sector in the last six months, including one who increased their company’s profitability by 40% in the first year.” Instead of saying, “We understand your market,” say, “We’ve tracked salary movements in your region for five years and can show you exactly why you’re losing candidates at the offer stage.”
Value is always in the client’s eye. What matters to them? What outcomes are they trying to achieve? When you can draw a direct line from what you do to outcomes they care about, pricing conversations become completely different.
This is where most companies fall. They know they’re good at their work, and their clients tell them they’re happy. But can they articulate exactly why they’re better than the five companies the client could call? Can they explain their value in concrete, measurable terms? Usually not. And that’s why they compete on price or get pushed into contingent terms.
Let’s get practical about this.
Say you specialise in engineering recruitment. You don’t just say “we know the engineering market.” You say: “We’ve placed 47 engineers in the last 18 months with an average time to hire of 32 days, compared to the industry average of 58 days. That means your projects start faster, you beat competitors to market, and you save roughly £15,000 per hire in lost productivity.”
See the difference? One is vague. The other is concrete, specific, and directly tied to business outcomes the client cares about. That second version makes it easy for a client to justify your fee because they can see exactly what they’re getting and why it matters.
Building Your Value Proposition Step by Step
Jon emphasised that this isn’t about making things up or exaggerating what you do. It’s about being honest and clear about the value you deliver. Start with what you know. Look at your last ten placements. How long did they take? What happened next? Did those people perform well? What feedback did you get?
Then think about your process. What do you do that other companies don’t? Maybe you interview every candidate face-to-face. Perhaps you do reference checks that go beyond the standard questions. Maybe you provide market intelligence reports with every search. Possibly you have a 12-month guarantee. These things all have value, but only if you articulate them clearly.
Now consider your relationships.
Do you have access to passive candidates who aren’t on job boards?
Do you understand the culture of companies in your sector well enough to predict who’ll fit? Have you built trust with candidates so they tell you things they wouldn’t say to another recruiter?
This is valuable, but clients won’t know about it unless you tell them.
The key is connecting all these capabilities to client outcomes. Don’t just list what you do. Explain what it means for them. “We interview every candidate face-to-face” becomes “We interview every candidate face-to-face, which means you only meet people we’ve thoroughly assessed for cultural fit, saving you from wasting time on unsuitable candidates and reducing your risk of a bad hire.”
Everything you do can be framed this way. The question is: have you done the work to articulate it? Have you made it easy for clients to understand why you’re worth more than the agency down the road?
The Retainer Will Follow When You Get This Right
Once you understand your value and can communicate it clearly, retainers become a logical necessity. Jon made this point brilliantly. When you deliver genuinely high-value recruitment services, working on contingency makes no sense. Why would you do all that valuable work without any commitment from the client?
The future of recruitment demands higher-value services. Technology is handling the basic stuff. Your role is to go upmarket, tackle the more complex challenges, and build closer client partnerships. Most people in recruitment want this. They’re proud of what they do and want to work more strategically.
As you move up the value chain, your fees need to increase, too. Price is a signifier of value. If you’re solving bigger problems, dealing with more complexity, and delivering better outcomes, your rates should reflect that. You need confidence to say, “This is premium work. You work to my terms, and here’s the value you’re getting.”
This isn’t about being arrogant. It’s about being honest. Premium pricing is fair and justified when your service significantly impacts your client’s business. The clients who understand that value won’t question your fees. They’ll ask whether they can afford not to work with you.
Jon talked about learning from other industries, where it gets interesting. Look at law firms, management consultancies, and architects. They don’t work on contingent terms. They charge for their expertise, their time, and their knowledge. Why? Because they’ve positioned themselves as experts whose advice is valuable regardless of the outcome.
Now, recruitment is different. You are delivering the outcome of a successful hire, but the principle stands. Your expertise in finding, assessing, and placing candidates has value even before someone accepts an offer.
Your market knowledge has value, as does your ability to represent a company well to passive candidates. Your process for reducing hiring risks also has value and deserves to be paid for.
The mistake is thinking you must “convince” clients to pay retainers. You don’t. You need to make them want to work with you so badly that paying up front becomes an obvious step. Payment terms become secondary when someone sees you as the solution to their problem, trusts your expertise, and believes you can deliver what others can’t.
Here’s the truth: clients who argue about retainers or want contingent terms are usually not convinced about your value yet. That’s not a payment terms problem. That’s a positioning problem. Rather than getting better at selling retainers, get better at demonstrating value. The rest follows naturally.
Why Premium Pricing Is Essential Going Forward
Let’s discuss what’s happening in the market. AI and automation handle basic recruitment tasks, and sourcing candidates is easier than ever.
Information is everywhere. So, what’s left for recruitment companies?
The high-value stuff, the complex roles, the hard-to-fill positions, the situations where expertise, judgement, and relationships matter.
This means your average fee should be going up, not down. You’re not competing with job boards anymore. You’re not even competing with LinkedIn. You’re competing with other experts who understand how to solve difficult hiring challenges. And expertise costs money.
Jon was clear about this. If you’re genuinely providing a premium, high-value service, your pricing needs to reflect that. Clients use price as a signal.
If you charge the same as everyone else, they assume you offer the same. If you charge less, they often assume you’re worth less. Premium pricing positions you as premium.
But here’s the catch: you can’t just increase your prices and hope for the best. The price has to match the value.
This brings us back to the core message: understand your value, map it to client needs, and present it clearly. When you get that right, premium pricing isn’t a barrier. It’s confirmation that you’re the right choice.
Think about your own buying decisions. Do you always choose the cheapest option when you need important legal advice, medical treatment, or a crucial repair? Or do you find the best solution and accept that quality costs money? Your clients think the same way about recruitment when the role matters to them.
What You Can Do Right Now
Start by auditing your value. Write down everything you do for clients, not just “we find candidates,” but the actual details.
How do you source? What’s your process? What expertise do you bring? What results have you achieved? Get specific about the outcomes you’ve delivered.
Create a spreadsheet. List your last 20 placements. For each one, note the time to hire, how many candidates are presented, the offer acceptance rate, whether the person is still there, any feedback from the client, and any measurable impact you know about.
Patterns will emerge. You’ll spot where your real strengths lie.
Next, talk to your best clients. Ask them why they work with you. What difference have you made? What would happen if they didn’t have you? You’ll often discover value you didn’t even realise you were providing. Clients see things differently and can articulate the impact you’ve overlooked.
Set up three client calls this week. Not sales calls. Discovery calls. Tell them you’re reviewing your services and want their honest feedback. Ask questions like: What do we do that other companies don’t? What surprised you about working with us? What’s the most valuable thing we’ve done for you? If you recommended us to another company, what would you tell them?
The answers will give you language you can use in your marketing, proposals, and client conversations. When a client says, “You saved us three months of searching,” that becomes part of your value story. When they say, “your candidate is the best hire we’ve made in years,” that’s evidence you can share.
Then, look at how you present yourself on your website, proposals, and conversations. Are you talking about your processes or their outcomes? Are you using generic recruitment language or specific, concrete examples? Are you making it easy for clients to see what value you bring?
Go to your website right now. Read the homepage. Does it talk about you or about what clients get? Does it use vague claims (“we’re the best”) or specific evidence (“we’ve placed 200 accountants in the East Midlands with a 94% retention rate”)? Most recruitment websites fail this test badly. They’re full of process descriptions and generic claims without concrete proof of value.
Your proposals need the same treatment. Don’t just outline what you’ll do. Explain what they’ll get. Don’t say, “We’ll source candidates through our network.” Say, “We’ll identify candidates who aren’t actively looking, giving you access to people your competitors can’t reach, which typically reduces your time to hire by 40%.” Every statement should connect to a client benefit.
Finally, start testing premium pricing with your best clients. The ones who already love what you do. The ones where demand is high. Please don’t sell them a retainer. Sell them an even better service, positioned clearly, priced appropriately. See what happens when you lead with confidence about your value.
Pick one client where you’ve delivered brilliant results. Approach them with a new service offering. Maybe it’s exclusive access to you for six months. Perhaps it’s a complete hiring solution for a specific department. Maybe it’s market mapping and talent intelligence plus recruitment. Package it properly, price it at 30% more than your standard rate, and see what happens.
The worst that can happen? They say no, and you learn something about how to position it better. The best that can happen? They say yes immediately, and you realise you’ve been undercharging for years. Either way, you move forward.
Common Objections and How to Handle Them
You might think, “This all sounds good, but my market is price sensitive.” Or, “My clients won’t pay premium fees.” Or “I’ve tried charging more, and clients just went elsewhere.” These are common responses, and they’re worth addressing.
First, every market has buyers at different price points. Yes, some clients will always choose the cheapest option. They’re not your target clients. You can’t be all things to all people. The question is: are there clients in your market who value quality over cost? Almost certainly yes. You need to find them and speak to them.
Second, if clients go elsewhere when you increase prices, it usually means one of two things. Either you didn’t justify the increase with additional value, or you were targeting the wrong clients. Simply charging more for the same service doesn’t work. But charging more for a genuinely better service, clearly articulated, does work—with the right clients.
Third, price sensitivity often reflects unclear value. When clients don’t understand what they’re getting, price becomes the main decision factor. Price becomes less important when they know exactly what they’re getting and why it matters. The solution isn’t to lower your prices. It’s to clarify your value.
Jon shared insights from working with dozens of companies. The ones that succeed with premium pricing consistently do three things: They get crystal clear on their value proposition, they target clients who have genuine pain points they can solve, and they communicate their value in concrete, specific terms that clients can easily understand and justify internally.
You don’t need to convince every prospect. You need to attract and convert the right prospects. The ones who understand that hiring well matters. The ones who cheap recruiters have burned. The ones who value expertise and results over low fees. Those clients exist in every market. Your job is to make it obvious why you’re the right choice for them.
To find out more about Jon, visit his website here. TheValueAdvantage.
Thanks
Sharon
How We Can Help
At Superfast Recruitment, we work with companies to create revenue certainty, develop market authority and build their business vitality.
We understand that pricing conversations are valuable, and we help companies articulate their unique strengths in ways that resonate with both clients and candidates.
To find out more, book a call with us here.
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