Direct hire
The person is employed by you. Success fee, expressed as a percentage of gross annual salary: — %, set in the contract. Nothing is owed if you hire nobody.
Your adverts bring in people who do not fit, and good engineers do not read adverts. We go and find them, we test them on the work itself, and we present three — each with what they can do and what they cannot do yet.
The profiles
What we look for, and can judge.
We keep to infrastructure and service IT, because that is what we practise ourselves. We do not pretend to recruit for work we would not be able to test.
- Systems engineer — Windows Server, Linux, virtualisation
- Network engineer — switching, routing, firewalls, Wi-Fi
- Support technician and support lead
- Cloud and automation — Azure, AWS, scripting, tooling
- Security — hardening, monitoring, incident response
- Architect and technical project manager
- Database and backup administrator
- On-site technician for an industrial plant
The method
How we go about it.
- Together
The brief
An hour with the person who will actually manage the new colleague — not only with HR. We write down what is essential and what can be learned on the job. That distinction removes half the wrong leads.
- Response8
The search
Professional network, candidate database, direct approach. Good people are already employed: you do not find them by publishing, you go and get them.
- Response8
The technical interview
Run by someone who does the work. Real cases, not multiple choice. You get the write-up, including the parts that gave us pause.
- Response8
The shortlist
Three candidates, each with their strengths, their limits, their expectations and their real availability. If only two hold up, we present two.
- You
Your interviews
You meet them. We prepare both sides and collect feedback in both directions, quickly: a good candidate kept waiting ten days signs elsewhere.
- Together
After they start
A conversation at one month and another at three. That is where misunderstandings get corrected, while they are still small.
The arrangements
Three ways to work together.
Contracted engineer
The engineer is employed by us and works at your site for an agreed period. Day rate — €, with the option to take the contract over afterwards.
Short reinforcement
A few days or weeks, to get over a hump: a migration, an office move, an audit, a sick leave. Billed by the day, no minimum term.
Our commitment
If the person does not stay.
A failed hire costs more than a fee does. Which is why the risk should not sit with you alone.
- A 3-month guarantee period: if the person leaves, we restart the search at no further fee
- We never approach a candidate we have placed with you
- One contact at our end, from the start of the assignment to the end
- The exact terms are in the contract, not in a footnote
These are the terms we propose as standard. They are open to discussion, and what is agreed gets written down.
Questions
What people ask us.
How long until a first candidate?
Entirely dependent on the role. A support technician is found quickly; an experienced Dutch-speaking network engineer, far less so. We give a timeframe at the brief, and we tell you as soon as we can see it will not hold.
Do you work on an exclusive basis?
No, unless you want that. We only ask to be told if another agency presents the same candidate — for your legal safety as much as ours.
Can you recruit outside IT?
No. We cannot judge a sales or finance profile, and we will not pretend otherwise.
What happens to the applications we turn down?
They stay in our database, with the person's agreement, and no longer than the period announced. Your name is never given to a candidate without your agreement, nor the other way round.
A role that has been open too long?
Describe it in a few lines. We will tell you honestly whether we can fill it — and if we cannot, we will say that too.