When is contingency recruitment the right choice instead of retained search?
Contingency recruitment suits professional-level roles where a company wants flexibility and pays only on placement. AVID EXEC runs contingency for mid-level and specialist hires using the same assessment discipline as retained search, without the exclusivity or the market-mapping phase.
Professional level roles that allow companies more flexibility.
Professional level roles that allow companies more flexibility
Not every hire warrants a retained engagement, and pretending otherwise is how recruiters lose the trust of a client. Contingency is the right agreement for professional and specialist roles where the market is reachable and the company wants to keep its options open.
You pay on placement. If we do not find the person, there is no fee.
What does not change
The assessment. A contingency candidate is read against the same thirteen attributes and the same evidence standard as an executive candidate — proven capability, self awareness, acumen, motivation, potential, and the rest.
We believe everyone in a company matters, no matter the level. Depth of talent at all levels is what builds competitiveness and succession.
What does change
There is no exclusivity and no formal market map, so the reach is narrower than a retained search. For a scarce, senior or confidential role, retained is the honest recommendation and we will say so.
- Property managers and assistant property managers
- Accountants, analysts and finance professionals
- Project managers and coordinators
- Leasing and tenant relations professionals
- Corporate services and administration
- Engineering and technical specialists
We go further than the résumé. We uncover a candidate's value proposition — how they think, how they behave, what motivates them, what their values are, and where their emotional intelligence sits. Then one step further: how all of that produced a set of proven, consistently demonstrated outcomes, and the ROI they will give their next employer.
- 01
Proven capability
What they have actually delivered, with evidence.
- 02
Self awareness
How accurately they read their own effect on people.
- 03
Acumen
Commercial judgement under incomplete information.
- 04
Motivation
What genuinely drives them, and what does not.
- 05
Potential
The ceiling, not the current altitude.
- 06
Capacity
How much they can carry before quality slips.
- 07
Alignment
Whether their values and the organization's actually meet.
- 08
Nimbleness
How fast they change position when the facts change.
- 09
Future impact
What they would move in the first ninety days.
- 10
Resourcefulness
What they do when the budget or the team is not there.
- 11
Reputation
What the market says when we ask quietly.
- 12
Accountability
Whether they own outcomes when nobody is watching.
- 13
Leadership
Whether people follow them by choice.
Let's talk about this mandate
AVID EXEC · (780) 497-2000 · info@avidexec.com