Tools — for hiring teams

Which hiring route fits this role?

Ten questions about the requirement, and a straight answer about which of the ways we work suits it — including when the answer is that you do not need a search at all. No form first, and nothing you choose is sent to us.

1. Is this a permanent role or project work?

2. How soon do you need the work covered?

3. What level is the role?

4. How scarce is this skill set, in your experience?

5. Does the search need to stay confidential?

6. How many hires?

7. What in-house recruitment capacity do you have?

8. Do you need market mapping and proactive approaches?

9. Do you need hiring capacity inside the team, or one placement?

10. Where is the company?

Likely fit

Permanent Recruitment

A specialist consultant runs the search for a permanent hire and brings you a shortlist, with headhunted approaches alongside the people already looking.

Why this fits your answers

You are hiring a permanent employee.

The trade-off

One search, one hire: the field is wider than an advert reaches, but it is a role-by-role engagement rather than standing capacity.

When this may not fit

If the work is a defined project with an end date, or you need cover in days, a permanent search is the slower answer.

About Permanent Recruitment

These answers sit between two routes. Either could be right — the difference is worth a conversation.

Close alternative

Advertise the role

Put the role in front of the people already looking. No search process, no shortlist — you handle the applications.

Why this fits your answers

You are not asking for mapping or direct approaches.
At this level an open advert reaches a genuine field.

The trade-off

You keep the whole process — screening, scheduling, chasing — and you only reach people who are already looking.

When this may not fit

If the people you want are not applying to adverts, or the search has to stay confidential, advertising alone will not reach them.

Advertise a job

Talk it through

Nothing above is a quote or a commitment. If it is close, a short conversation is usually quicker than more questions.

Start a hiring conversation See all services

The questions behind the answer

Short answers to what hiring managers usually want settled before choosing a route. Each one links to the page that describes the work in full.

Retained or contingent recruitment?

Contingent recruitment is paid on a successful hire, which suits roles where a good shortlist can be built from an active market. A retained search is a committed piece of work: the market is mapped, people who are not looking are approached directly, and the search is worked through to a defined shortlist rather than stopped when something acceptable appears. Leadership roles, confidential replacements and genuinely scarce skill sets are where that commitment earns its place.

Executive Search (Retained) and Permanent Recruitment.

Contract or permanent?

The honest test is whether the work ends. A migration, a launch, a gap while you recruit — that is contract work, and a contractor can usually start in a fraction of the time a permanent hire takes to notice out. If you want someone to own an area, build on it and still be there in two years, that is a permanent hire, and paying a day rate for it costs more and buys less continuity.

Contract Recruitment.

When does embedded recruitment make sense?

Embedded capacity is about a run of hiring, not a vacancy. If you are making several hires over a period, or hiring continuously without an in-house talent team, a consultant working inside your team keeps the process, the messaging and the candidate experience consistent across all of it. For one role it is more commitment than the hire needs.

Talent as a Service is embedded recruitment capacity — a dedicated Humand consultant working inside your team on a fixed monthly retainer covering an agreed scope of hiring.

Talent as a Service.

When is advertising alone enough?

If good people already apply to your roles, the skill set is not scarce, and you have the capacity to screen and schedule, an advert may be all you need. That is a real answer and this tool will give it to you. It stops being enough when the people you want are not looking, when the search has to stay confidential, or when the volume of applications is more than anyone has time to read properly.

Advertise a job.

Why senior leadership hires benefit from proactive search

The field for a head of engineering or a CTO is small, and most of it is employed and not reading job boards. An advert reaches the part of that field which happens to be looking this month. A mapped, proactive search reaches the rest — and because the approach is direct, it can be made discreetly when the appointment cannot be public.

Executive Search (Retained) and Market Mapping.

Startup Staffing and Talent as a Service are not the same thing

Startup Staffing places permanent employees you hire directly. The recruitment fee is an agreed percentage of the hire's gross monthly salary, paid monthly while they remain employed.

Talent as a Service is embedded recruitment capacity — a dedicated Humand consultant working inside your team on a fixed monthly retainer covering an agreed scope of hiring.

Startup Staffing and Talent as a Service.