Agency Recruiter Brief

Agency brief packet shared. Kickoff call held. Submission cadence and SLAs agreed. Agency performance tracker updated. Feedback delivered after each submission batch.

Before you start

Agency engagement contract with terms and fees agreed
Approved JD and compensation band
Hiring manager intake completed
Role JD and intake notes
Compensation band, location policy, equity
Internal context the agency needs (priorities, deal-breakers, culture notes)

The steps

Compile a comprehensive brief packet — Cover: role essentials, compensation/equity/benefits, location policy, key outcomes for first 90 days, must-haves, nice-to-haves, deal-breakers, culture notes, and the interview process timeline. Include 2-3 examples of recently-hired profiles for calibration.
Define exclusion list — Provide list of companies/people the agency should not approach (current customers, recently-rejected candidates, competitors of customers). This protects relationships and prevents friction.
Set fees, terms, and SLAs — Restate the contract terms: fee structure (% of base or flat), guarantee period, replacement policy, presentation format, expected turnaround on submissions. Misunderstandings here cause invoice disputes later.
Hold a 30-minute kickoff call — Walk through the brief live. Answer questions on must-haves, deal-breakers, and culture. The kickoff call sets calibration — agencies that don't attend kickoff typically underperform. Treat it as required.
Set submission cadence and review SLA — Agree on: target submissions per week, format of submission (resume + 3-5 line summary on fit), and our review SLA (typically 2 business days). Slow review = agency loses motivation.
Track agency performance — Log per-agency: submissions, qualified rate (% advancing to phone screen), screen-to-onsite rate, hire rate, average time-to-submit. Use this data when renewing or rotating agency partners.
Provide regular feedback — After every batch of submissions, send a structured feedback note: which profiles fit, which missed and why. Specific feedback ('was too senior') is calibration data; vague feedback ('not quite right') is wasted effort.

If it goes wrong

Agency submits high volume of low-quality candidates

Hold a recalibration call. If it doesn't improve in 2 weeks, pause the engagement. Volume without quality wastes our time.

Fee dispute on a candidate who was already in our pipeline

Maintain a pipeline check before any agency submission is logged. If duplicate, agency is informed within 24 hours so they can stop work.

Internal review takes too long, agency loses momentum

Hard SLA: 2 business days for resume review. If a hiring manager is the bottleneck, route to recruiter for first-pass screening to maintain agency engagement.

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