Permanent IT recruitment, without the upfront risk.

Permanent recruitment is hiring someone onto your own payroll for an ongoing role, with an agency finding and screening the candidate and stepping away once they start. The employment relationship is yours from day one: your contract, your benefits, your team. Agencies charge for it one of two ways, a retainer paid upfront whatever the outcome, or a success fee owed only when your hire starts. We work the second way.

Who employs the person, and how long the need lasts. In permanent recruitment you become the employer and the role has no end date. In temporary or contract recruitment the agency employs the worker, bills an hourly rate, and the engagement ends when the work does. The cost behaves differently too: permanent is a one-time fee against salary, temporary is an ongoing margin for as long as the person stays. Plenty of teams run both, a permanent core with contract capacity around it.

Ask for the licence number. Ontario has required recruiters and temporary help agencies to hold a licence since 2024, the numbers are public, and you can verify one on the provincial register before signing anything. Ours are REC-0000007562 for recruiting and THA-0000007550 for temporary help. Past the licence, a legitimate agency never asks a candidate to pay a fee, names the client before an interview, and puts its guarantee in writing.

You brief the role, we source and screen against that brief, and you interview a shortlist instead of an inbox. When you choose someone, they join your payroll directly and we invoice a percentage of their base salary. Nothing is owed if you do not hire. If the person leaves inside 90 days, we run the search again. Most searches reach shortlist in about two weeks.

A direct hire is a full-time employee recruited by an agency but employed by you from day one, on your payroll and benefits, with the agency paid a one-time placement fee. It differs from contract staffing, where the agency remains the employer. Every permanent search we run is a direct hire placement.

They solve different problems. A direct hire search fills a permanent seat you plan to keep; staffing covers a defined stretch of work with a contractor on the agency's payroll. If the role is ongoing and core to the team, direct hire wins on retention and cost per year of tenure. If the need is a project, a migration, or coverage, contract IT recruitment is the faster and more flexible answer.

Doing it yourself, the honest downsides are time and reach: a self-run search typically costs a hiring manager six or more weeks of screening, and job postings only reach candidates who are actively looking. Working through an agency answers both, and with a success-based fee the cost only lands when the role is actually filled.

We work on a success-based model, sometimes called pay-per-hire. You pay a percentage of the new hire's base salary, invoiced only once they start. No upfront fees, no retainers, and no charge if you don't hire. Our recruitment agency fees article breaks the numbers down in full.

Yes. What the industry calls direct-hire placement or contingency recruiting is what we call success-based permanent recruiting: we source, screen, and place full-time hires, and you pay only when one starts, with no exclusivity required.

No. You can keep your own search running, or work with other recruiters, alongside us. We earn repeat work by delivering, and we keep no one under an exclusivity clause.

Then you don't pay. The fee is invoiced only when your new hire actually begins. If they never start, there's no charge.

Yes. We frame the full offer, base, bonus, benefits, growth, and flexibility, so the right candidate sees the whole picture, more than just the salary number.

First candidates usually land within 24 to 48 hours, and most roles close in two to three weeks (here's how permanent and contract timelines compare), depending on how quickly interviews move on your side.