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Client LoginDid you know that 68% of employees feel disengaged at work? According to recent Gallup data, poor job fit is a major reason why. This troubling reality points to a fundamental problem in how we hire - and contingency recruitment is often at the heart of it.
You've probably noticed that while organisations increasingly talk about cultural alignment (macro and micro), behavioural fit, team dynamics, attitude, resilience, emotional intelligence, ability to adapt/learn and people-centric assessment, many still rely on an outdated hiring model that dates back to World War II. This disconnect between what we say we want and how we actually hire creates significant hidden costs for you whether you're an employer, a candidate, or a recruiter.
How We Got Here
Contingency, aka transactional recruitment emerged during World War II when we desperately needed to fill massive workforce gaps. Back then, the criteria was straightforward: who wasn't called for military duty? Women, people with certain health conditions, those in essential trades and professions. This method served its purpose in an era of mass volume recruitment and basic qualification matching.
During World War II, mass recruitment focused primarily on filling factory positions, clerical roles, and essential services jobs that supported the war effort.
The hiring process was straightforward: brief interviews focused on availability and basic qualifications, followed by minimal training before placement. Evaluations centred on production metrics and attendance rather than engagement or job satisfaction.
Compare this to today's requirements for even entry-level professional roles:
👉 Technical skills plus adaptability to rapidly changing technologies
👉 Collaboration abilities across diverse, often remote teams
👉 Problem-solving capabilities in ambiguous situations
Today's hiring decisions impact not just immediate productivity but team dynamics, innovation potential, customer experience, and long-term organisational health. Yet many organisations still approach recruitment with the same transactional, skills-first mentality that served a different purpose in a different era.
But look at how far we've come since then. Your organisation probably seeks candidates who align with your culture (macro and micro), have the right behavioural traits, demonstrate emotional intelligence, show adaptability, and possess potential for growth and so forth. Yet paradoxically, you might still be using a recruitment method designed for a vastly different era and purpose.
What This Costs You as an Employer
For you as an employer, the hidden costs are equally significant. You might begin your hiring process by advertising roles directly, unaware that this approach reaches only 10 to 20% of potential candidates, leaving the passive and semi-active talent pool untapped, up to 90%!
From my experience, most candidates who are placed using people-centric hiring methods are either passive or semi-active and have not heard about the opportunity.
When faced with limited response, you may panic and with a scarcity mindset engage multiple contingency recruiters, leading to:
👉 An overwhelming inbox filled with unsuitable applications
👉 Confusing duplicate communications from different sources
👉 Unnecessary drama, frustration and time waisted interviewing
👉 Lack of candidate commitment
👉 Limited time for proper stakeholder engagement
👉 Superficial candidate assessment and insight
👉 Hours/days/weeks/months spent screening applications
Additional hidden cost is the impact on organisational performance, employee engagement, brand value, cultural alignment, and long-term success trajectories, not to mention the draining impact on you as the hiring manager.
With LinkedIn news reporting that 70% of job skills will change by 2030 due to AI and other factors, we need to focus less on specific skills and more on finding people with the right attributes for long-term success.
What This Means for You as a Candidate
If you're a job seeker, you've likely experienced how contingency / transactional recruitment can create a fragmented and impersonal experience. Think about it:
👉 Have you received delayed feedback or no feedback at all?
👉 Did you feel like a CV in the pile rather being considered as a whole person?
👉 Were you contacted by multiple agencies about the same role?
Even the most skilled contingent recruiter can't fully overcome these issues while operating within this traditional framework. The result? You invest significant time and emotional energy into recruitment methods you’re not aware of that frequently lead to poor job fits and career missteps.
Have you ever accepted a role only to think "what the hell!" a few weeks in?
What It's Like for You as a Recruiter
If you're a contingency recruiter, you face your own set of challenges. Operating in an environment with typical success rates of just 10-20%, you must:
👉 Juggle multiple vacancies simultaneously to ensure you hit targets
👉 Compete with other agencies using the same talent pool
👉 Work with limited information and stakeholder engagement
👉 Balance quantity with quality under constant time pressure
👉 Accept that up to 90% of your effort may go unpaid
Doesn't it drain your energy knowing that most of your work won't result in placements? In contrast, people-centric hiring methods achieve success rates of 95-98%, putting you in control of the outcome, demonstrating the potential for a more efficient and effective approach that could transform your work experience.
A Better Way Forward for All of Us
The solution lies in adopting people-centric hiring methods that align with our modern needs. These approaches allow you to:
👉 Consider the whole person, not just their skills and experience
👉 Deliver a comprehensive market attraction & engagement strategy
👉 Consider cultural alignment and team dynamics
👉 Use interconnected assessment & engagement methods (pre- and post-hire)
👉 Identify the desired behavioural traits for the role
👉 Have higher employee engagement scores
👉 Reduced hiring costs as better choices are made
👉 Protect candidates from making the wrong decision
Through methodologies like Ihon Holistic Hiring™, we can transform recruitment from a transactional process into a strategic partnership that serves everyone's interests. And this isn't just for senior roles - it works across all professional appointments and sectors.
What You Can Do Now
For meaningful change to occur, we all need to participate in evolving recruitment practices:
If you're a candidate: Challenge the next recruiter you speak with. You could start by asking about their hiring method, their stakeholder access, cultural alignment, team dynamics, and how they'll assess you as a whole person. Seek partnerships with recruiters who demonstrate a commitment to understanding you and their client as a whole.
If you're an employer: Recognise that candidate identification is no longer the challenge; we live in a digital age where most of us have a digital presence. Instead, consider working in complete partnership with recruiters that can offer you solutions to our new challenges that have been highlighted throughout this article.
If you're a recruiter: Embrace new methodologies that move beyond the fear-based, scarcity mindset of contingency recruitment. Focus on creating value through thorough interconnected assessment & engagement with stakeholders and candidates, supported by comprehensive attraction and engagement strategies.
We're All in This Together
The hidden costs of contingency recruitment affect all of us - candidates, employers, and recruiters alike. As we face unprecedented workplace transformation, we must adopt hiring methods that reflect our evolved understanding of what makes people and organisations happy and successful.
This evolution isn't about increasing recruitment fees, far from it; it's about creating a balanced system that works for everyone involved. By acknowledging our interconnectedness and interdependence, we can build hiring practices that support genuine human connections and long-term success.
Remember, recruitment equals people, and people are the creators, so instead of living in fear and scarcity, lets create safety and abundance. We're all in this journey together - so let's use a better way of working that serves us all.
If any of this resonates, I would love to hear your perspective in the comments, or feel free to contact me directly.