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Most clients have a signed agreement and a kickoff scheduled within 2–3 business days of the initial conversation. PartnerHire clients typically receive first candidate submissions within 3 business days of kickoff. We don't do month-long onboarding cycles.

PartnerHire Core is month-to-month, with a 30-day notice period for one or two recruiters, 90 days for three or four, and negotiated terms for larger teams. DirectHire is contingent, so you pay only when you hire.

DirectHire is typically 10-15% of first-year base salary. 10% applies to a new requirement given to BizFirst on a 30-day exclusive; otherwise the fee is 12-15%, set by the difficulty and qualities of the role, with long-open, heavily-worked requirements priced toward the top. Executive, highly complex, and high-clearance roles may be quoted separately. Reduced pricing may be available for exclusive searches, repeat clients, and multiple similar openings. A minimum placement fee may apply. DirectHire is best for companies with occasional, specialized, or unpredictable hiring needs that prefer to pay when a candidate is hired.

PartnerHire Core is a flat monthly rate per dedicated recruiter, each with a shared Client Delivery Lead: $8,500 per month for one dedicated recruiter, plus $7,000 per month for each additional recruiter, so two recruiters are $15,500 and three are $22,500, and four or more get custom volume pricing. A part-time shared recruiter is available from $5,000 per month. Every engagement adds a flat $1,000 fee for each successful placement, never a percentage of salary. Pricing is month-to-month, with a 30-day notice period for one or two recruiters, 90 days for three or four, and negotiated terms for larger teams. For teams that want us to run their recruiting function end to end, PartnerHire Complete starts at $18,000 per month: a senior talent leader runs the operation backed by a dedicated recruiting pod, with unlimited active roles, hiring process design, employer value proposition, offer strategy and salary benchmarking, still a flat $1,000 per placement and never a percentage of salary. PartnerHire Core is best for companies with recurring hiring needs, several active openings, or enough ongoing recruiting activity to justify monthly embedded support.

Both give you a dedicated recruiting team on a flat monthly fee. The difference is who owns the recruiting function. With Core, our recruiters plug into your process and a shared senior lead QAs every submission, so you keep the process and strategy. With Complete, that lead runs the function for you, including process design, offer strategy, and pipeline and metrics, with unlimited roles. Two-recruiter Core starts at $15,500/mo, Complete at $18,000/mo. Either way, you keep the final hiring decision and employer-only steps like the offer, background checks, clearance adjudication, and onboarding.

Contingent recruiting, which we call DirectHire, is priced as a percentage of the hire's first-year base salary, and you pay nothing unless we place someone. It is typically 10-15% (10% for a new requirement on a 30-day exclusive; otherwise 12-15%, set by the difficulty and qualities of the role, with long-open, heavily-worked requirements priced toward the top). Executive, highly complex, and high-clearance roles may be quoted separately. A minimum placement fee may apply, and reduced pricing is available for exclusive searches, repeat clients, and multiple similar openings. Because it is success-based, contingent recruiting is a good fit for occasional or unpredictable hiring.

RPO and contingent recruiting solve different problems. RPO, which we offer as PartnerHire Core, is an embedded recruiting team that works as an extension of your company for a flat monthly fee, and it fits steady, ongoing hiring across several roles. Contingent recruiting, which we offer as DirectHire, is a per-hire model where you pay a percentage only when you hire, and it fits occasional or specialized openings. Put simply, RPO is ongoing recruiting capacity billed monthly, and contingent is one-off hiring billed on success.

With contingent search you pay only when a candidate is hired, while retained or engaged search involves an upfront fee that secures dedicated resources for the role. Contingent, our DirectHire model, is typically 10-15% of first-year base salary and works well for most professional and specialized openings, and you pay only when you hire. Executive, highly complex, and high-clearance roles may be quoted separately. Retained or engaged search fits executive, highly specialized, or urgent roles that need focused research and a committed timeline, and it is quoted per engagement based on scope. The upfront engagement fee is credited toward the final placement fee, so you are not paying twice for the same role.

Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is when a company hands part or all of its hiring to an outside team that works as an extension of the business. At BizFirst this is PartnerHire Core: a dedicated recruiting team, a Client Delivery Lead as your single point of contact, and senior oversight, all for a flat monthly fee. The team runs sourcing, screening, scheduling, and offer support, and it scales up or down as your hiring needs change. RPO fits companies with recurring hiring, several open roles at once, or enough ongoing activity to justify embedded support rather than one-off hires.

Yes. We recruit cleared and uncleared professionals for government contractors across all clearance levels, from Public Trust through TS/SCI with polygraph. We understand hiring tied to contract awards, the timing pressure that follows a win, and the compliance realities of cleared recruiting. Our home base in Ashburn keeps us close to the Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. contractor market.

Yes. DirectHire placements include a 90-day replacement guarantee. If a placed candidate leaves or does not work out within the first 90 days, we recruit a replacement at no additional placement fee, subject to the terms in your agreement. For a critical or hard-to-refill role, our Protected option extends that guarantee to 180 days for an engagement fee credited in full against the placement fee. The guarantee reflects how we work, with thorough screening and honest calibration up front so the people we submit are a real fit rather than a fast fill. Specific terms can vary by engagement, so we spell them out clearly before you sign.

Most clients see first candidate submissions within 3–7 business days of kickoff, depending on the model and how specialized the role is. PartnerHire clients typically get first submissions within 3 business days because the team is already embedded, while DirectHire and specialized roles usually land in the 5–7 day range. Time to a signed offer also depends on your interview process and decision speed, but we keep the pipeline full so momentum does not stall. We would rather send a short list of strong fits than flood you with resumes.

Yes. We work with clients across 10+ states. Our recruiters work remote-first and source nationally. The DMV and Northern Virginia region is our home base, but geography doesn't limit the hiring.

We recruit mid-level to senior professionals in technical, operational, and leadership roles. Common roles include software and systems engineers, cloud and cybersecurity specialists, data and AI talent, program and project managers, contracts and acquisition professionals, finance and accounting leaders, sales and business development, and operations and HR leadership. We serve telecom, technology and AI, government contracting, SaaS, business and finance, and professional services, both cleared and uncleared for GovCon clients. We do not do high-volume hourly or light-industrial staffing. Our focus is on professional, hard-to-fill, and leadership roles where fit and quality matter more than volume, delivered through DirectHire, PartnerHire Core, or PartnerHire Complete depending on your needs.

The biggest difference is the ratio. Most agencies assign 20–30 clients per account manager. Our Delivery Leads manage just 3–4. That means your hiring gets real attention from someone who knows your business and your culture, not a coordinator juggling dozens of accounts at once. We also have fewer layers than large firms and more capacity than independent recruiters. Your Delivery Lead can scale support up or down based on urgency, volume, or critical fills.

We run every search in our own applicant tracking system and sourcing stack, so you never buy tools, share logins, or manage our workflow. That keeps setup turnkey and lets us start right away. Your hires and their information stay yours: at the end of an engagement, on request, we hand over the resumes and submission history for every candidate we submitted, so nothing you paid for is locked in a system you cannot reach.

No. A BizFirst PartnerHire fee covers a managed recruiting engagement: a dedicated recruiter plus a senior Client Delivery Lead who owns client alignment, recruiter oversight, and quality assurance of every candidate submission. Even DirectHire, our contingent model, includes a senior Client Delivery Lead on a per-role basis. Comparing a BizFirst fee to the cost of a single recruiter understates what is included.

The Client Delivery Lead is a senior BizFirst delivery professional who owns client alignment and intake, recruiting strategy, oversight of the dedicated recruiter, quality assurance of every candidate submission, hiring-manager calibration, feedback and escalation management, and overall accountability for delivery quality. It is included in PartnerHire Core and Complete, and one Client Delivery Lead supports only three to four clients.

Compare the total delivery model, not recruiter fees alone. Ask whether each option includes a recruiter, a senior Client Delivery Lead, independent candidate-submission QA, client-facing delivery management, recruiter oversight, and clear accountability. If those functions are not included, the services are not equivalent, and a lower price may reflect a narrower scope.