The debate over recruitment fees is taking a new twist as an Aberdeen-based recruitment consultancy introduces payment by the hour.

The Urquhart Partnership, which handles professional recruitment in a range of sectors from oil and gas to HR, has introduced an hourly rate for time spent working on a permanent vacancy. The company claims clients could save up to 75% of their usual recruitment fees.

This initiative was prompted by complaints from clients who resent being charged a high placement fee when an agency already has suitable candidates on its database.

“The fee therefore seems higher than is merited for the effort taken in sourcing the candidate,” said the company’s business development manager Karen Reid.

Clients can use the hourly rate scheme only if the agency works on a vacancy exclusively. A cap on the fee is established at the beginning of the assignment, explained Reid, “and we tell clients upfront if we can’t fill a vacancy, so we don’t set ourselves up to fail”.

So how can the recruitment firm afford to do it? Reid explained that on a normal assignment with, say, four agencies working to fill a vacancy, then Urquhart’s consultants had a one in four chance of filling it.

“But with this scheme our consultants are paid for the work they do every day rather than risk doing all that work for nothing,” she said. “If it only takes two hours to interview someone and perform the behavioural testing, then the client is only charged for two hours.”

She added that this brought the recruitment industry in line with other professions. “You pay for legal or accountancy advice by the hour so why pay for recruitment any other way?”