What to Put in Your Contract With a Recruiter (Strategic Alliances/Partnerships)

Developing the wrong kind of relationships with recruiters can put your resume writing business at significant risk. They can make promises to you about providing a volume of clients that can be enticing — but can they deliver? And at what cost (both in terms of finances and the commitment it will require from you)?

Going into these relationships armed with the right knowledge and information can help assure you pick the right recruiters to work with — and negotiate an agreement that works for you — and for them. 

Questions: 

• Will you (the firm) be the “client” or will I be working with (and billing) the job seeker directly?

• What kinds of clients do you work with? Any specialties? What salary ranges do you usually work with? Remember that “generalist” firms in particular might send you some clients you don’t usually work with. If this is the case, you might want to make arrangements ahead of time with a subcontract writer to handle those clients.

• Do you anticipate these project to be resumes only, resumes and cover letters, or other types of materials (bios, portfolios, LinkedIn profiles, etc.). Would you be interested in offering any other services to your clients — i.e., career workshops, interview coaching, salary negotiation advising?

• How many projects do you think you will be sending me (per week, or per month)?

• How do you anticipate the client management process being handled (how I normally conduct business, or do you have something else in mind — i.e., meeting the client at your offices, or representing myself as your agent?)

• How will referrals be made? Online? Will you email me the client information and I make contact? Will you set up a formal affiliate page and/or link? Or will you give the client my contact information, and the client will contact me?

• How will sales be tracked? Are you responsible for tracking leads and clients, or am I?

• How will payment be handled? Will the client pay you, or me?


Issues to address when structuring an agreement (these are addressed in detail in the special report, but here is an overview):

• Tracking referrals

• Compensation

• Scope of commissionable work

• Reporting requirements

• Pricing

• Contact details

• Clients you don’t/won’t work with

• Client ownership and ownership of work (copyright)

• Nondisclosure/confidentiality

• Payment details

• Expense reimbursement

• Defining the nature of the relationship (“status”) – i.e., independent contractor, employee, or agent

• Responsibilities of each party

• How default/breeches are resolved

• Limits of liability

• Term of the contract

• Contract termination


Excerpted from: “Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships With Recruiters” by Bridget (Weide) Brooks.

Do You Want All the Business You Can Handle?

Strategic alliances and partnerships often start out with that promise: All the business you can handle. One individual or organization has connections with jobseekers, and they promise to send a flood of new clients your way...usually in exchange for a commission or profit-split.

But developing the wrong kind of relationships can put your resume writing business at significant risk. They can make promises to you about providing a volume of clients that can be enticing — but can they deliver? And at what cost (both in terms of finances and the commitment it will require from you)?

Going into these relationships armed with the right knowledge and information can help assure you pick the right recruiters to work with — and negotiate an agreement that works for you — and for them. Here are some guidelines for working with a third-party individual (recruiter) or organization, excerpted from the "Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships With Recruiters" special report. (These same principles apply no matter who is promising to send clients your way!)

Page 10: Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships With Recruiters

Questions you should ask before entering into a strategic alliance or partnership:

• Will you (the firm) be the “client” or will I be working with (and billing) the job seeker directly? 
• What kinds of clients do you work with? Any specialties? What salary ranges do you usually work with? Remember that “generalist” firms in particular might send you some clients you don’t usually work with. If this is the case, you might want to make arrangements ahead of time with a subcontract writer to handle those clients. 
• Do you anticipate these project to be resumes only, resumes and cover letters, or other types of materials (bios, portfolios, LinkedIn profiles, etc.). Would you be interested in offering any other services to your clients — i.e., career workshops, interview coaching, salary negotiation advising? 
• How many projects do you think you will be sending me (per week, or per month)?
• How do you anticipate the client management process being handled (how I normally conduct business, or do you have something else in mind — i.e., meeting the client at your offices, or representing myself as your agent?) 
• How will referrals be made? Online? Will you email me the client information and I make contact? Will you set up a formal affiliate page and/or link? Or will you give the client my contact information, and the client will contact me? 
• How will sales be tracked? Are you responsible for tracking leads and clients, or am I? 
• How will payment be handled? Will the client pay you, or me? 

Issues to address when structuring an agreement (these are addressed in detail in the special report, but here is an overview):

• Tracking referrals 
• Compensation 
• Scope of commissionable work 
• Reporting requirements 
• Pricing 
• Contact details 
• Clients you don’t/won’t work with 
• Client ownership and ownership of work (copyright) 
• Nondisclosure/confidentiality 
• Payment details 
• Expense reimbursement 
• Defining the nature of the relationship (“status”) – i.e., independent contractor, employee, or agent 
• Responsibilities of each party 
• How default/breeches are resolved 
• Limits of liability 
• Term of the contract 
• Contract termination 

The special report contains definitions of each of these items and how they may impact the contract you come up with (no matter how informal!) with your partner.

Excerpted from: “Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships With Recruiters” by Bridget (Weide) Brooks.

Considering an Alliance with a Recruiter or Other Referral Source?

Have you ever considered developing a formal relationship with a referral source -- a recruiter, headhunter, career coach, mental health therapist, even a Realtor® -- but didn't know where to start?

"Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters."

This information-packed report is designed to give you an in-depth guide to develop and structure these relationships -- from finding prospective referral partners to coming up with a compensation structure to things you should include in a Letter of Agreement or contract to ensure the relationship begins -- and ends -- the way it should.

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Here is an excerpt from the report:

Risk vs. Reward and the Role of Resources
The more risk you take on (i.e., investment in materials, free programs for the recruiting firm's clients), and the more resources you commit (developing custom forms and templates, meeting with clients at the recruiting firm's offices because that is more convenient for them), the greater the share of the project fee you should reap.

You might consider different fee-splitting percentages, depending on the arrangement:

• Seeing clients at your office vs. at the recruiter's office vs. virtually
• If you are collecting the fee vs. if they are soliciting the funds and then paying you (thus allowing them to "use" the money in the meantime).

If it's up to you to structure the agreement, write it in such a way that is favorable to you, and be prepared to negotiate the details, if necessary.

As a general guideline: The more resources you commit to the project, the greater your share of the project fee should be.

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I conducted interviews with resume writers who currently are in strategic alliances and/or partnerships with recruiters or headhunters and there are also five case studies in the report detailing their experiences. Report also includes Frequently-Asked Questions.

The "Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters" special report is just $27 and is available for immediate download.

Finding Strategic Partners and Referral Relationships

Have you considered cultivating referral relationships with other service providers? These can be providers who write resumes, provide career or interview coaching, career testing services, or life coaches.

When choosing possible partners, look for individuals or companies that share a similar work style. Get to know enough about them that you would feel confident in recommending them to your clients.

In this blog post, I’m going to focus on how this process applies to selecting resume writers to partner with, but the process is the same for whichever type of provider you’re interested in working with.

The two most important factors when selecting a referral partner are whether they can do a good job and whether they can handle your clients well.

The process starts with identifying likely candidates. There are lots of options -- local providers, regional or national providers; direct competitors; colleagues.

The obvious choice is to look in the Yellow Pages or online listings. But don’t stop there -- you can also find possible candidates through networking in local professional associations -- Society of Human Resource Management chapters (for example, mine is the Human Resource Association of the Midlands). Depending on where you live, you may also have local associations of resume writers — for example, the Resume Writer’s Council of Arizona.

The advantage of working with existing résumé writers or career coaches in your local areas is that you can meet them personally and observe their operations firsthand.

Most of the service providers you consider will probably already be in business. They should have existing business structures — phone, computer skills, recordkeeping systems — to handle referrals you send their way. If they’ve been around a while, they probably don’t need much hand-holding either — which means you could set up a partnership agreement pretty quickly.

On the negative side, these are usually your competitors — meaning your prospective client may have already contacted this person or company and decided not to work with them, for whatever reason. So then you’re put in the position of “selling” your competitor to the prospective client, which may or may not work.

Are you interested in pursuing a strategic partnership or referral relationship? Purchase the "Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters" special report from Resume Writers' Digest.

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Resume Writers

I get a lot of questions from resume writers about how to avoid the "Time for Dollars" Trap -- that is, how to unlink your income from billable hours. Affiliate marketing is one way to start this journey.

You may be doing affiliate marketing without even knowing it. For example, if you write a resume and refer your client to Bob Bronstein at Profile Research to research employers and distribute the resume and cover letter, you’re engaging in affiliate marketing. If your client mentions that you referred them to Bob, he will send you a check for a percentage of the order. That’s affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing opportunity between two companies. Business one (the “advertiser”) pays business two, the “publisher” (that’s you) for sending new customers to them. They may pay you for “traffic” — which is visits to your site; they may pay you for “leads” — which are qualified customer names who may end up purchasing their products or services; or they may only pay for sales, or when a purchase is actually made.

You can choose to be an affiliate for an individual company (on their website, look at the very bottom of the page and you might find a link for “Affiliates”) or join an affiliate network. Affiliate networks connect advertisers with publishers. Companies that offer their affiliate programs through networks often are making a significant commitment to their affiliate program, because they’re paying anywhere from $500 to $6000 or more to be a part of that affiliate network. Advertisers that also have a dedicated individual to serve as their affiliate relationship manager are also more committed to the success of their affiliate program — which means more support for you.

You can also work with individual providers. Profile Research is an example of this. Bob tracks the business you refer to him without the use of an affiliate network, and without a formal affiliate program. If you are a resume writer, you might also set up this type of relationship with a career coach, if you don’t offer career coaching yourself. The client mentions they were referred by you, and the career coach might pay you a flat fee or percentage of the client’s order. The same might be true if you are a career coach who refers to a resume writer. (If you're interested in pursuing this type of informal relationship, I suggest the "Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters" Special Report, which also covers developing referral relationships with other third parties, including career coaches.)

There is also a third type of affiliate program. I mentioned the terms “advertiser” and “publisher” to describe the companies. The placement of ads on your online content is also a type of affiliate marketing. The most common of these relationships is with Google’s AdSense program. Any business can purchase ads through Google’s AdWords program. If your website or blog matches the demographics of the customer the advertiser is looking to reach, his or her ads will appear on your content, and you’ll get paid for people who look at the ad … and you’ll get paid more when they click on the ad.

P.S. One of my most popular blog posts was an interview I conducted with Steve Shellist with ResumeSpider.com on affiliate marketing for resume writers. Check it out here.

Frequently-Asked Questions About Referral Relationships

In my new special report, "Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters," I address some frequently-asked questions about developing and structuring referral relationships.

Here are some of those questions:

Question: Why would a recruiting firm contract with me instead of hiring a resume writer to join their staff?

Answer: The major advantage to the recruiting firm is that they do not increase their fixed costs when they contract with you instead of hiring an employee. They collect a commission for referrals they send your way, but don't have to pay a (fixed) salary for what may be an uneven workload.

Question: How should I handle 'internal' client projects for the recruiting firm?

Answer: There may be situations where the recruiting firm contracts with you directly to write a resume for a key client (instead of the client paying you).

In these situations, you can charge the recruiting firm your fee, less the referral commission (i.e., they would pay 60-85 percent of your normal rates for these projects), paid directly to you at a specified time (i.e., once a month). I suggest invoicing the recruiting firm for these projects and handling payment separately, rather than deducting payment from commissions you owe them.

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Want to learn more? Purchase the report, "Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters." The cost is just $27 and the file is available for immediate download.

New Special Report: Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters

Have you ever considered developing a formal relationship with a referral source -- a recruiter, headhunter, career coach, mental health therapist, even a Realtor® -- but didn't know where to start?

Today, I'm officially launching my latest Resume Writers' Digest special report: "Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters."

This information-packed report is designed to give you an in-depth guide to develop and structure these relationships -- from finding prospective referral partners to coming up with a compensation structure to things you should include in a Letter of Agreement or contract to ensure the relationship begins -- and ends -- the way it should.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is an excerpt from the report:

Risk vs. Reward and the Role of Resources
The more risk you take on (i.e., investment in materials, free programs for the recruiting firm's clients), and the more resources you commit (developing custom forms and templates, meeting with clients at the recruiting firm's offices because that is more convenient for them), the greater the share of the project fee you should reap.

You might consider different fee-splitting percentages, depending on the arrangement:

• Seeing clients at your office vs. at the recruiter's office vs. virtually
• If you are collecting the fee vs. if they are soliciting the funds and then paying you (thus allowing them to "use" the money in the meantime).

If it's up to you to structure the agreement, write it in such a way that is favorable to you, and be prepared to negotiate the details, if necessary.

As a general guideline: The more resources you commit to the project, the greater your share of the project fee should be.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I conducted interviews with resume writers who currently are in strategic alliances and/or partnerships with recruiters or headhunters and there are also five case studies in the report detailing their experiences. Report also includes Frequently-Asked Questions.

The "Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters" special report is just $27 and is available for immediate download.

In addition, I'm doing a special giveaway ... Suggest a topic for a future Resume Writers' Digest Special Report (using the comments section below) and I'll pick one random entry to win a free copy of another one of my special reports, "Maximizing Your Cash Flow: Subcontracting and Referral Relationships." Limit one entry per person. Comment deadline: 2/28/11. Winner will be notified via e-mail.