Module 09 · Scaling Your Recruitment Efforts
Working With Agencies
Questions to ask & red flags to look out for. A good agency can compress months of hiring into weeks. A bad one will burn your budget, mis-sell your role and damage your talent brand in the market. Assess them as rigorously as you would a candidate — before you sign anything.
Watch out
Red Flags
Any one of these is a signal the agency isn't delivering — or never will. Track them from the very first batch of candidates.
Sending irrelevant candidates
Either technically not right with no justification, or people that they clearly haven't screened — e.g. the candidate wants remote and you're in-office only. Every irrelevant CV costs you time and tells you the agency didn't read the brief.
Low quantity
You won't know what good looks like and you won't fill the role. A slow trickle of one candidate a fortnight means the role isn't being prioritised or the agency can't actually reach the market.
Candidates underprepared
Candidates not knowing details you've given to the agency on the briefing. If the agency isn't passing on your mission, stage and role context, they're not selling for you — and candidates arrive cold.
Low quality outreach
Messages that mis-sell the role, give out inaccurate details or over-promise in some way. This is your employer brand being spent without your consent — ask to see exactly what's being sent in your name.
Candidate over-prepared for your interview questions
Do candidates from the same agency start to answer questions in the same way? If so, the agency is coaching candidates to pass your process rather than finding people who genuinely fit — you're assessing the coaching, not the candidate.
Before you engage
Questions to Ask
Ask these on the qualification call, before you agree terms. Strong agencies answer them easily — hesitation is information.
Can we see the outreach you're using to attract candidates?
What example of placements have you made in similar stage companies?
What places would you source candidates from to fill this role?
Who do you know that's relevant for this role given what we've just discussed?
Areas of specialism — do they have a range of consultants specialising in the areas you need to hire in (e.g. SWE, SRE, AI / ML, Product, Design, Sales etc.)? Or will you need multiple agencies for different areas?
Go further
Deeper Diligence
The questions above filter out weak agencies quickly. These go a level deeper and separate a genuinely good partner from a good salesperson.
Can I speak to two or three founders you've placed for in the last 12 months?
References — and recent ones. Ask those founders what the agency's shortlist quality was like, how the candidates described the role, and whether they'd use them again. An agency that hesitates to connect you with past clients is telling you something.
Show me examples of past placements — names, companies, roles and seniority — that are genuinely comparable to this search.
Push past logo lists on a website. You want placements at similar-stage companies, for similar roles, that stuck. A placed candidate who left in four months is a failed placement, not a case study.
Which specific consultants will actually work on my search — and can I meet them?
The partner who pitches you is often not the person doing the work. Ask for the named individuals who will source and screen for you, their own track record, and how many other searches they're running concurrently. Your search should be a priority, not the fifteenth open brief.
Outside of the obvious sourcing choices — the top companies known for this skillset — where do you think you'll find people who could be a great fit that might normally be overlooked?
Every agency can pull engineers from the usual suspects. The best ones have a point of view on adjacent talent: people at companies a stage behind or ahead of yours, adjacent industries using the same stack, returners, bootcamp and non-traditional backgrounds, strong contributors visible in open source or communities rather than on LinkedIn, and candidates in lower cost-of-living locations. If they can't answer this, they're running the same LinkedIn search you could run yourself.
How will you represent our company, and what will you say about us?
You should hear a pitch back that sounds like your pitch — mission, traction, why the role matters. If their version is generic, every candidate they reach hears a generic version of your company.
What will the first two weeks look like — calibration candidates, feedback loops, and when should I expect the first shortlist?
Good agencies propose a calibration process: a few early profiles to tune the brief before volume. 'We'll send candidates soon' without structure is how you end up with irrelevant CVs in week three.
What happens if the placement doesn't work out — what's your guarantee and rebate structure?
Understand the replacement or refund terms before you sign. A confident agency stands behind its placements; vague terms here become expensive arguments later.
Once engaged
Making the Relationship Work
Even a great agency fails with a bad client. Your side of the bargain determines most of the outcome.
Give a real brief
Share the pitch, the must-haves, the anti-profile, compensation bands and your interview process. The more context they have, the better they sell and screen.
Give fast, honest feedback
Feedback within 24–48 hours keeps candidates warm and recalibrates the search. Silence teaches the agency the wrong profile and cools your market.
Limit your agencies
One or two committed agencies beat five half-engaged ones. Contingent agencies deprioritise roles they're competing on — an exclusive or retained engagement gets their best effort.
Review against the red flags
Two weeks in, check the shortlist against the red-flag list above. If irrelevant or underprepared candidates keep arriving, recalibrate once — then replace the agency.