Glossary
Split-fee recruitment, term by term
Plain-English definitions of every term you'll meet in recruiter collaboration. No jargon left unexplained.
- Split-fee recruitment
- A partnership in which two recruiters share one placement fee: one supplies the role (the job order) and the other supplies the candidate. Typical splits are 50/50 between recruiters, or up to 70/30 in the candidate-side recruiter's favour on employer-direct marketplaces such as RecX Direct.
- Split-fee agreement
- The contract between two partnering recruiters that fixes the fee percentages, payment timeline, responsibilities, and dispute terms before any candidate details are exchanged. On RecXchange these agreements are generated and accepted automatically at the start of every partnership.
- Job order (role holder)
- The vacancy a recruiter has been engaged to fill, together with the client relationship behind it. In a split-fee partnership, the recruiter who owns the job order is the "role holder" and typically receives half of the placement fee.
- Candidate owner
- The recruiter who sourced and represents a candidate in a split-fee partnership. The candidate owner submits the candidate to the role holder's vacancy and receives the agreed share of the fee when the candidate is placed.
- Candidate ownership
- The question of which recruiter introduced a candidate first, and therefore who is owed the fee. Disputes over ownership are the main reason recruiters historically avoided collaboration; timestamped submissions resolve them by record rather than argument.
- Timestamped submission
- A candidate submission recorded with the exact date, time, and submitting recruiter. If two recruiters submit the same candidate to the same role, the earlier timestamp establishes ownership automatically.
- Deal protection
- The combination of timestamped submissions and auto-generated split-fee agreements that guarantees neither side of a recruitment partnership can be cut out of a fee. Terms are locked before candidate details are shared, so they cannot drift afterwards.
- Contingency recruitment
- The traditional agency model: multiple agencies work the same role in competition and only the first to place a candidate earns the fee. It creates a race-to-submit dynamic; split-fee collaboration replaces the race with a shared outcome.
- Retained search
- A recruitment engagement where the client pays part of the fee upfront (often 30-50%) for an exclusive search, regardless of outcome. Contrast with contingency and split-fee models, where payment is due only on a successful placement.
- Placement fee
- The fee an employer pays when a candidate is successfully placed, usually 12-20% of the candidate's first-year salary. In a split-fee placement this single fee is shared between the partnering recruiters at the agreed ratio.
- Fee split ratio
- The agreed division of a placement fee between partnering recruiters, expressed as percentages: 50/50 is standard between two recruiters; 60/40 and 70/30 favour the candidate-side recruiter on employer-direct roles.
- Passive candidate
- Someone employed and not actively job hunting, but open to the right opportunity. Passive candidates rarely appear on job boards; they are reached through recruiter relationships, which is why recruiter networks outperform advertising for senior and niche roles.
- Recruitment marketplace
- A platform where recruitment supply and demand meet: recruiters with roles, recruiters with candidates, and employers with vacancies transact under standardised terms. RecXchange is a split-fee recruitment marketplace with 15,000+ verified recruiters.
- RecX Direct
- RecXchange's employer-direct product, operated by Andrews Recruitment Group t/a RecX Direct (UK). Employers post roles straight to the network, and because there is no second agency in the chain, the recruiter who delivers the candidate keeps up to 70% of the placement fee.
- Xchange Engine
- RecXchange's AI matching system. It builds a fingerprint of every role across sector, seniority, location, salary, and skills, then ranks and alerts the specialist recruiters most likely to hold a matching candidate, in real time.
- Tokens (RecXchange)
- The platform currency used to take actions on RecXchange, such as submitting a candidate to a role. Plans include a monthly allowance: 5 tokens on RecX Entry ($1/mo), 150 on RecX Lite ($99/mo), and 400 on RecX Pro ($249/mo).
Want the full picture? Read how split-fee recruitment works or grab the free agreement template.