Hiring Strategy
Contingency, Direct Placement, RPO and Recruiting as a Service, Explained
The recruiting industry uses four terms for arrangements that overlap in practice. The differences that matter are who carries the risk, how you pay, and how much of your hiring process the partner takes over.
Flow Placed Editorial · 7 min read · March 9, 2026
Contingency search
You pay only if you hire someone the agency introduced, usually as a percentage of first-year salary. Nothing is owed if the search goes nowhere, which makes it low-commitment on paper.
The tradeoff is attention. A contingency recruiter is often working several clients against the same candidate pool, and a percentage fee ties their income to the salary rather than to the fit.
Flat-fee direct placement
Same outcome as contingency, different pricing logic. You pay a fixed amount per successful hire regardless of the salary, so budgeting is predictable and salary negotiation stays clean, because nobody in the room earns more from a higher offer.
This is the Flow Placed model: $2,999 per successful hire, with 90-day replacement support written into the agreement. It suits single roles and small numbers of roles with clear requirements.
RPO, recruitment process outsourcing
RPO takes over part or all of the hiring process, often including coordination, scheduling, employer branding and reporting. Pricing is usually a monthly or per-project fee rather than per hire.
It fits organizations with real volume and an existing talent function to integrate with. It is a heavier arrangement, and it assumes you have internal process to hand over.
Recruiting as a service
The newer of the four. It sits between direct placement and full RPO: a recurring engagement that keeps pipeline running across multiple roles, typically on a subscription rather than per placement, with the tooling and reporting included.
It suits companies that hire steadily but do not want to build an internal recruiting team yet. Within the Flow Group Ventures ecosystem, that is TAASFlow's territory rather than ours.
How to choose without overthinking it
- One role, clear spec, need it filled: flat-fee direct placement.
- One role, very senior, confidential: retained or direct placement with a tight brief.
- Several roles per quarter, no internal recruiter: recruiting as a service.
- High volume plus an existing talent team: RPO.
Have a role to fill right now?
Share the details and we will follow up to schedule an intake conversation.