This is written for the person paying the invoice, not the one sending it. Almost everything published on backdoor hires and fee disputes is written for the agency chasing the money. I have spent ten years on the other side of that - I have sent the invoice, chased the fee, and waived it. So this comes from inside the room rather than from a template, and some of it will not flatter my own industry.
Do I owe a fee for a candidate who applied to us directly?
Usually not, if the agency had no involvement. But the answer changes completely depending on what happened before the application landed, and the distinction that matters is not legal - it is whether they did any work.
If an agency mailshotted you a CV you never asked for, you are on strong ground. My own view, as a recruiter: no agency speculatively sending a CV has any right to charge you a fee. You have not entered into an agreement with that business, and mass-sending CVs is lazy recruitment. I would not partner with a firm that works that way.
Being honest about the commercial reality: a recruitment agency is not going to instruct a lawyer to chase a fee for a candidate they sent speculatively without permission. They would waste money and not win. A great deal of published advice on this makes the risk sound larger than it is.
A tailored introduction is a completely different thing. When I hear about a role that looks right for someone I know well, I get the candidate's permission and reach out. The client owes me no response and does not have to be interested - it just puts the option on the table. Sometimes I make the introduction for free and ask only for the goodwill of a conversation about their next hire.
We never signed their terms. Are we still liable?
Possibly. A signature is not required. Terms bind if they were communicated to you and accepted by you, and acceptance can happen through conduct rather than a pen.
The line that decides most disputes: passively receiving a CV is weak ground for the agency. Requesting CVs, taking the call, or running an interview is strong ground. One reported dispute failed for the agency partly because the CV never reached the person who made the hiring decision - it sat in an HR inbox. Another succeeded because the client had asked for the CVs, which the terms deemed to be acceptance.
There is one trap worth knowing. If you reply expressing interest, and their terms treat that as acceptance, you can be bound if you later hire the person. So if you do want to explore a candidate who arrived unsolicited, reply saying you reject the terms and the introduction, that you only work with recruiters you have signed terms with, and that you would like a call to discuss terms first.
In practice, nobody has time to reply to every speculative CV - inboxes are already flooded. This is one of the more sensible things to hand to AI: have it triage and respond to unsolicited introductions automatically, so the liability is removed without anyone spending an afternoon on it.
Two agencies claim the same candidate. Who do we pay?
Ask both of them to evidence their right to represent, and pay the one who can. Do not default to whoever sent the CV first - that is how employers end up paying twice.
Any good recruiter follows up after briefing a candidate on a role, asking them to confirm they are happy to be put forward. Those confirmations are time stamped. Ask for them. It is the single most useful thing you can do the day this lands, and it resolves most cases in minutes.
It usually becomes obvious. The agency that cannot evidence it has often advertised the role without your brand on it, taken an application, and forwarded the person with no conversation at all. That is unethical practice, and it tells you something about a firm you would be better off not working with.
The uncomfortable truth is that this is frequently the candidate's doing rather than the agency's. Someone already put forward gets a call about the same role, thinks two routes gives them a better chance, and says send it. When we speak to a candidate we ask whether they have already been covered for a role, and if they have, the conversation stops there. It is not an opening to claim ownership - even when the candidate says they would rather deal with us.
I have been in this position holding the legal ground while the other agency would not move. Rather than force my client to pay two fees, I stepped back and asked for a firmer commitment from them going forward instead. They were glad of it. How the two agencies behave in that moment tells you more about which one to keep than any pitch will.
The person left after eight weeks. What are we owed?
Whatever the contract says, and there is no default. Read for whether the remedy is money back or a replacement candidate, because they are very different things and both get called a rebate.
What I offer is not a rebate. It is a guarantee - that the candidate is the right fit for your organisation, team and role. If that turns out not to be true, we find you the person who is, free of charge.
Terms of this kind commonly carry conditions that quietly decide the outcome: a written notification window measured in days, qualifying reasons that exclude redundancy, and a requirement that the original invoice was paid on time. That last one surprises people most - pay late, and the rebate can disappear regardless of what happened to the hire.
I think that clause is fair, and I would defend it. Everyone needs paying for the work they do, and agreed terms are agreed terms. But whether it gets enforced is a judgement call, and it should be. If your payment run is next week, or cash flow is tight for a fortnight, say so - we would not enforce it against someone who is being straight with us. Where I would enforce it is the other case: you go quiet after the hire, no feedback, the invoice runs overdue with no explanation, the person does not work out, and that becomes the reason not to pay. The work of filling the role was already done. Your business may well be the reason it did not stick.
If the candidate is telling you the role was not what they were promised, more favourable rebate terms are not what you needed. What you needed was a recruiter who took the time to understand the role and did not skirt round its challenges to get it filled. There is mutual responsibility in that: the recruiter should have scoped out the good, the bad and the ugly, and the hiring manager should have been straight about the working environment. It benefits no one to sell a dream that does not exist.
Can they claw the rebate back if we re-hire the person?
Yes, if the terms say so, and a clawback window of several months is common. Take the rebate, re-hire that person inside the window, and you repay it.
That one is fair. No organisation should be using terms as a route to a free hire - particularly when re-hiring the person is an admission that they suited you after all. Whether an agency charges the full fee in that situation is a judgement call on the circumstances, but having the protection in writing is reasonable.
One clause here I will not defend. Some terms define the leaving date as the later of the last working day, the end of garden leave, or the period covered by pay in lieu of notice. Someone resigns at week three with four weeks paid in lieu, and on paper they left at week seven - which can drop you from a high rebate band into a low one.
That is sharp practice and it is sneaky. It does not protect the business, it extorts clients slyly. I would have more faith in a firm with no rebate period at all than one carrying that clause. If you see it, ask them to explain it, and listen carefully to the answer.
Are these terms normal, or is this agency taking liberties?
Most of what looks aggressive is standard and defensible. The thing to judge is not the clause - it is whether the firm tells you where they stand before you need to ask.
People forget that the people working in a recruitment business have families, mortgages and bills, and work hard for their money. Their livelihoods deserve protecting too. Terms exist to protect both sides.
There is a second-order reason this matters to you as the buyer, and almost nobody makes the argument. A recruitment firm with fair terms is protecting its own cash flow - which is what stops anyone inside that business resorting to malpractice to make a quick buck. A firm desperate for your business will agree to everything you ask. My question would be what you are actually buying.
The best firms are happy to give, and they will also ask for things in return. If it is not a two-way street they will not work with you. And if you have to guess what your recruitment partner's position would be on any of this, there are better relationships available. Our clients do not have to guess - they know where we stand, what we expect of them, and what we expect of ourselves.
If we just refuse to pay, what happens?
If they did the work, you will probably lose, and you will pay anyway with nothing to show for it. Back-door hires are commonly chased and the agency usually wins.
I have chased them. Most agencies do. The fees are typically at a level worth pursuing, and principle comes into it as much as money. I would always let a client explain first - but where it is clearly a route around the fee, I would chase it, and so would almost anyone in my industry. The only time I would not is where the fee is too small to justify the effort. That is the honest answer, and it is not a strategy.
You also lose something that does not appear on the invoice. You have leverage in being a client a recruiter wants to work with again. You lose that leverage the moment they decide they would rather not. That firm may hold the keys to a hire you badly need in two years.
The version that works is straightforward. If you have let an invoice run overdue and communication has slipped, own it, apologise, and open a conversation. What I would offer at that point is this: pay the fee, and take a free replacement. If the role has changed, pay it and hold it as credit. You pay for work that was genuinely done, and because it did not work out, you get another process at no charge.
What is the most expensive mistake here?
Not the fee dispute. Making the wrong hire, then doing it again.
Three things cost employers far more than a contested invoice.
Chasing the lowest fee instead of the value. Getting down to 12 per cent does not save money if it puts you with firms on a race to the bottom. Candidates get poor service from those agencies, so you do not see the best people. Twelve per cent two or three times a year, because you keep having to hire, adds up faster than one higher fee where the hire lasts.
Avoiding the fee conversation at the start. We agree the fee before anything is signed. Not everyone does. Some will avoid it knowing they will hold firm when an offer is on the table - at which point your bargaining position has gone. It is understandable that you do not raise it; you should be able to lean on your recruiter for that. It is not acceptable for your recruiter to leave it unsaid.
Treating your recruiter as a CV factory. If that is the relationship, you are paying agency prices for job-board service with a sourcer attached. You are missing what you are actually paying for, which is judgement - the experience and the nose for when someone fits. That is the part that stops you hiring for the same seat twice. Onboarding is expensive, the fee is only one part of it, and doing it again racks up quickly.
If you keep finding yourself re-hiring, the answer is not to double down and blame the agencies. It is worth opening yourself up to advice.
Darren Boyle
Founder, the GEO folk
Darren Boyle is the founder of the GEO folk. Ten years in recruitment, latterly a Director at Robert Half. He places people into corporate roles assessed on skills and competency, AI literacy, and appetite and fit - because you hire a person, not a sheet of paper.