By Mike Maffei, Founding Partner, AlediumHR
Key takeaways:
- Many placement guarantees end at 90 days. A hire who leaves in month five leaves the client covering the cost.
- A longer guarantee helps clients trust your candidate. It also pushes you to better test the role’s requirements before you submit.
- Spell out what the guarantee covers and what voids it. Clients will only trust a guarantee you clearly stand behind.
I’ve been recruiting for over 30 years, and the one thing that hasn’t changed much is placement fees. We talk about time-to-fill, number of candidate submissions, and cost per placement. Of course, those numbers matter when you’re running a recruiting business, but I’ve always felt we’re overlooking something far more important. What happens to the person we place three, six, or twelve months later?
A recruiting firm can fill a position, collect its fee, and move on to the next assignment. Everyone is happy until, possibly soon after, the employee resigns or is terminated. The employer has lost weeks of productivity, investment in training, paid the recruiting fee, and, more likely, now has to start the entire process over. Meanwhile, the placement will still appear as a success in the recruiting firm. I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with that.
Placement guarantees often end after 90 days
Most recruiting firms offer some form of placement guarantee, typically covering the first 30, 60, or 90 days. These guarantees have become so common that clients frequently accept them without questioning. But think about what we’re asking an employer to accept. A company may pay thousands of dollars in fees, yet the recruiting firm’s financial responsibility could end after just three months.
How much can an employer really determine someone’s long-term performance in 90 days? Naturally, the type of position affects the placement guarantee, but you typically don’t see anything beyond 120 days. I’ve never understood why our industry considers that an acceptable measure of accountability.
The employer covers the cost when a placement fails after 90 days
This is the question I believe our industry needs to address. Consider an employer that pays a $20,000 recruiting fee for a difficult-to-fill position. The recruiting firm provides a 90-day replacement guarantee. The candidate starts, and everything initially appears to be going well. Five months later, the employee leaves.
The employer carries the financial consequences, while the recruiting firm may have little or no contractual responsibility for the outcome. If we promote ourselves as recruiting partners, shouldn’t we be willing to share more of that risk? I believe the answer is yes.
A longer guarantee signals confidence and sharpens the search
Different types of recruiting require different approaches. But I do believe recruiting firms should be willing to put more behind placement quality. An extended guarantee signals to the client that the recruiting firm has confidence in the candidate it presents and is willing to share some of the risk if the placement doesn’t work out.
It also changes how a recruiting firm approaches the search. When you know you’ll be accountable for a placement well beyond the first few months, you have a greater incentive to understand the employer’s expectations, question unrealistic requirements, and make sure the candidate understands exactly what they’re accepting. You become more focused on whether the person will succeed than simply whether they’ll accept the offer. That’s what I believe a recruiting partnership should look like.
A longer guarantee only works if you define what it covers
Of course, a longer guarantee is only valuable if the recruiting firm stands behind it. Clients should understand what the guarantee covers, and what circumstances might invalidate the guarantee. I also recognize that not every failed placement is the recruiting firm’s responsibility. Employers change management, restructure operations, eliminate positions, and sometimes fail to deliver the working conditions or compensation originally promised. Recruiting firms shouldn’t be expected to insure clients against every business decision they make.
But those realities shouldn’t prevent us from offering meaningful protection when a candidate simply doesn’t work out. In fact, a longer guarantee creates another opportunity for the recruiting firm to demonstrate its value. Rather than disappearing after the invoice is paid, you have a reason to stay in contact with both the employer and the employee, spot concerns early, and help address problems before they lead to attrition. That ongoing involvement matters, especially when an organization is making a significant investment.
Agencies prize quality of hire, but guarantees haven’t caught up
According to StaffingHub’s 2025 State of Staffing Benchmarking Report, 31% of respondents identified quality of hire and retention as their most important measure of talent-source return on investment, ahead of cost-per-hire and time-to-fill. Clearly, the industry recognizes that retention matters. I just question whether our business practices have caught up with that understanding.
If a recruiting firm believes it has identified the right person, why should its commitment end after 90 days? I’m not suggesting an extended guarantee can prevent every unsuccessful hire. It can’t. But it demonstrates a willingness to remain accountable for the outcome rather than treating the placement as a completed transaction. The recruiting industry has become very good at celebrating when someone starts a new job. I believe it’s time we put more of our reputation and financial commitment behind making sure they stay.
Mike Maffei is the Founding Partner of AlediumHR, a national healthcare recruiting and executive search firm. He has more than 30 years of experience in recruiting, talent acquisition, and operational leadership across healthcare and other industries.
