Four ways to work with us. One leads.

Permanent placement on contingency is our standard engagement. Contract, contract-to-hire and project crews are available on request only, each on bespoke written terms agreed before work starts.

Four ways to work with us, and one that leads

Most firms describe a menu of services. We prefer to describe a hierarchy, because it tells you where our strength lies. Our core service is permanent placement on contingency. Three other arrangements are available on request only: contract, contract-to-hire and project crews. Each of those is written individually, and none is a product with a published price or a fixed shape.

The point of this page is to help you choose the right door before you have a conversation, and to be candid about what we do not do. If you read only one sentence, make it this one: nothing here is promised in advance except a straightforward way to start, which is to tell us what you need.

How the choice usually gets made

Hiring managers tend to arrive with either a seat or an event. A seat is a role that will continue after the first quarter: a systems administrator, a platform engineer, a manager of a support team. An event is a piece of work that ends: a go-live, a rollout, a coverage gap, a backlog. Seats suggest a permanent search. Events suggest one of the others, if they suggest us at all.

A middle case deserves its own mention. Sometimes the seat exists but you want to see the person at work before committing, which is the situation contract-to-hire serves. It is most useful for hands-on roles, where practical reliability is hard to judge in an interview.

Permanent placement

You hire someone we present, and you pay only if you do. The standard recruiting agreement sets out the terms, including the replacement guarantee that applies to standard search agreements. This is where the bulk of our work happens, from help desk analysts to chief technology officers, and the dedicated page explains how a search runs and what it needs from you.

Contract, on request

For a defined need such as leave cover, a backlog or a seasonal surge, we will consider a request and, if it is workable, quote it individually. We will tell you when a dedicated contract staffing firm is a better fit, and we state no rates or durations in public because they would be meaningless without your details.

Contract-to-hire, on request

When you want to watch someone work before committing, we can discuss an arrangement whose conversion timing and terms are agreed in writing before the start date. It is common for help desk, desktop and field roles and unusual for senior ones.

Project crews, on request

For a rollout with a start and an end, such as a device refresh, a point-of-sale or network deployment, cabling or audio-visual installation, or go-live support, we can recruit and schedule a group together. The scope and the price belong to the project, never to a rate card.

What stays constant in all four

Three habits apply no matter which arrangement you choose. We speak with every person before proposing them, so you meet people who have already been asked the hard questions about scope and fit. We put anything beyond a standard permanent search into writing before work begins. And we say no when we are the wrong firm, because an honest refusal helps you more than an optimistic yes.

None of this page is a quotation, a rate, an employment arrangement or a statement about how long anything lasts. Those belong in written terms that fit your case.

Starting well

Begin with the form and say which of the four you are considering, or say that you are unsure. You can also book a short call with the business owner. Either way, a senior person reads the request. If your role is not on our lists, use the page for roles we have not named, and if you are weighing whether technology staffing in general is the right idea for your situation, we are happy to talk that through before any search begins.

Questions people bring to the first call

Hiring teams often ask whether our approach suits a small company with a single open seat, and the answer is yes, provided the role is technology work. A one-person IT function and a sprawling engineering group both benefit from a recruiter who has already spoken with people in similar situations. Others ask whether we will compete with their internal recruiters. We do not; we work alongside them, and many of our searches exist because the internal team has already exhausted the obvious channels. A third question concerns confidentiality, which we treat as a default for sensitive replacements: we do not name your company to a candidate without your agreement.

The four engagements

• Permanent placement
• Contract
• Contract-to-hire
• Project crews
• How we compare