Issue: Candidate ownership after a candidate is placed in a contract (or temporary) position

Date: 11/01/94

Spirit of this Policy
As the demand for contracting continues to increase, it becomes more important to address this issue. Top Echelon Network has witnessed the destruction of Trading Partner relationships because the job order agency would place a candidate in a short-term contract assignment one time, pay the candidate recruiter a normal split fee, and proceed to place the candidate a second and third time without wanting to compensate the candidate recruiter. The job order agency typically doesn’t feel the submitting agency is entitled to any portion of these future earnings, and the candidate recruiter typically feels he is being cheated. The result being, the two firms can no longer work together. In order for Trading Partner relationships to flourish, both recruiters must share in the winnings when times are good and struggle through the hard times when things are bad. If the candidate recruiter isn’t compensated on future placements of his candidate, he not only will feel deceived, but he also has no incentive to let his candidate work the job order agency’s assignment. Obviously, this creates an unhealthy environment and future split placements will not occur.

Therefore, it is Top Echelon Network’s feeling that when a job order agency uses another recruiter’s candidate for a short-term temporary or contracting assignment, future placements (temporary, contract, or permanent) of the candidate should also result in a normal split placement fee being paid to the original candidate recruiter. If the placing agency doesn’t agree with this policy, they should go recruit their own candidate and not use the candidate of the candidate recruiter. It is our feeling that the only time the job order agency will not owe the candidate recruiter a fee on future placements of his candidate is when the placing agency has broken "the chain of communication" with the candidate for a significant period of time (e.g., no less than 18 months), and the candidate contacted the job order agency for help, and the job order agency can prove this. See Policy #9b for a description of the "chain of communication."

This policy follows the industry’s BUT FOR RULE. Due to the nature of contracting assignments, the job order agency will maintain an "on and off" level of communication with a contracting candidate sometimes for years. This being the case, if the job order agency wishes to place the candidate again, a full split is required because "BUT FOR" that original agency’s referral of the candidate, there would not be a candidate to place.