Three years ago, I sat across from a founder who'd just raised £2M in seed funding. She was scaling fast, needed to hire five engineers, and had budgeted £60,000 in recruitment fees. When I told her the actual cost would be closer to £90,000, her face fell. "That's the salary of another developer," she said quietly.

She was right. And in that moment, I realized something was fundamentally broken about recruitment pricing.

The Industry Standard Nobody Questions

Recruitment agencies have charged 20-25% of a candidate's annual salary for decades. It's become so normalized that companies barely blink when they receive the invoice. A £60,000 hire costs £12,000-£15,000 in fees. A £100,000 senior role? That'll be £20,000-£25,000, please.

But here's what most people don't know: the actual cost to recruit hasn't stayed constant. Technology has made many aspects of recruitment dramatically cheaper and faster, yet fees haven't budged. In fact, they've arguably increased in some sectors.

20-25%

Industry Standard Fee

£15k

Average Cost Per Hire

Breaking Down Where the Money Goes

Traditional recruitment agencies spend most of their fee on labour. And not the valuable kind—the admin kind. Here's roughly how a typical agency's time breaks down:

Time Allocation (Traditional Agency)

CV screening and filtering: 8-12 hours
Email coordination for interviews: 4-6 hours
Creating comparison reports: 3-4 hours
Status update calls/emails: 5-8 hours
Actual recruitment expertise: 10-15 hours

Notice the pattern? Most of the time is spent on tasks that could be automated. The actual value-add—understanding your business, assessing candidate fit, negotiating offers, managing relationships—accounts for maybe 30% of the total effort.

Yet you're paying for all of it at the same rate.

The Question That Changed Everything

After that meeting with the founder, I couldn't stop thinking about one question: What if we could automate the busywork and pass the savings to clients?

"What if we could deliver the same quality of service for half the price by letting technology handle the repetitive tasks?"

It seemed obvious. We're in 2025. We have AI that can screen thousands of CVs in seconds. We have platforms that can coordinate schedules automatically. We have tools that can generate comparison reports with a click.

So why was recruitment still operating like it was 1995?

Building Trusty Scouts

We started with a simple thesis: the relationship part of recruitment is irreplaceable, but the admin part isn't.

We built a platform that handles everything that doesn't require human judgment:

What We Automated

Initial CV screening against job requirements
Interview scheduling and calendar coordination
Real-time status updates and notifications
Candidate comparison matrices and reports
Pipeline tracking and analytics

This automation doesn't just save time—it's often better than manual work. Our CV screening is more consistent. Our scheduling never double-books. Our reports are always up-to-date.

But we kept the human parts human. You still get a dedicated account manager who knows your business. You still get expert vetting of candidates. You still get negotiation support and relationship management.

The Math That Makes It Work

Here's the breakdown: our platform automates about 60% of traditional recruitment admin work. That means our recruiters can handle more searches simultaneously without compromising quality. They're not bogged down scheduling interviews—they're actually recruiting.

This operational efficiency lets us charge 12% instead of 20-25%. Same white-glove service. Half the price.

Why This Matters for Growing Companies

That £2M-funded startup I mentioned? With our model, her five engineering hires would cost £36,000 in fees instead of £90,000. That's £54,000 in savings—nearly a full additional hire's salary.

For companies making 10+ hires a year, the savings become transformational. Money that would have gone to recruitment fees can go to salaries, benefits, training, or just extending runway.

40%

Average Cost Savings

3-4wks

Time to Hire

The Critics and Skeptics

When we first shared our pricing, the reactions were mixed. Some companies immediately saw the value. Others were skeptical: "If it's half the price, is it half the quality?"

Fair question. But it's based on a faulty assumption: that recruitment fees correlate with quality. They don't. They correlate with how much manual labour is involved.

We're not cutting corners on service. We're cutting out busywork. There's a difference.

Our account managers spend their time on high-value activities: understanding your culture, assessing candidates thoroughly, providing market insights, negotiating offers. They don't spend hours manually posting jobs or creating spreadsheets.

What We've Learned

Building Trusty Scouts has taught us several things:

First, transparency matters. Companies appreciate knowing exactly what they're paying for and why. No hidden fees. No surprises.

Second, technology should enhance human expertise, not replace it. Our platform makes our recruiters better at their jobs, not obsolete.

Third, the market is ready for change. Once companies see they can get the same quality for less, there's no going back.

Looking Forward

We're still new. We don't have years of case studies or hundreds of placements under our belt. But we do have something else: a genuine belief that recruitment pricing needs to reflect the modern cost of delivery, not historical norms.

Every founder who saves £50,000 in recruitment fees can use that money to grow faster. Every HR director who cuts hiring costs without sacrificing quality looks like a hero. Every growing company that gets access to professional recruitment services at an affordable price has a better chance of succeeding.

That's why we built Trusty Scouts. Not to undercut competitors for the sake of it, but because good recruitment shouldn't cost a developer's annual salary.

"We believe professional recruitment should be accessible to companies at every stage of growth—not just those with deep pockets."

The Invitation

If you're tired of recruitment fees that make you wince, we'd love to talk. If you believe good service doesn't have to cost 25% of a salary, let's chat. If you're curious whether automation can actually deliver quality, let us show you.

We're building something different here. Not cheaper recruitment—better value recruitment.

And we think that distinction matters.

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The Real Cost of Recruitment: Why We Built Trusty Scouts