There is a gap between handing a role to an outside agency and hiring a full-time recruiter you may not have the volume to justify. The agency does not know your team or your culture. The full-time hire is a salary, benefits, and overhead commitment that several roles a year does not warrant. Most growing companies sit in that gap and feel it every time they hire.
Fractional recruitment solves the problem. You get a dedicated Source and Recruit recruiter embedded inside your hiring process as an extension of your team, for the share of their time your hiring actually needs.
This is not temporary help or pay-per-placement piecework. It is a retained partnership. Your recruiter learns your business, your roles, and the kind of people who succeed on your team, then runs your searches with that context the way an internal hire would. The difference from a full-time recruiter is the commitment, not the depth: you get the embedded knowledge without the full-time cost.
Clients describe the experience in exactly those terms:
"Our recruitment consultant began operating like an extension of the team in very short order and submitted high-quality candidates which kept my internal customers happy. I've been with this organization for 29 years and have worked with over 150 staffing and recruitment agencies; I'd say that this team is among the best." Sr. Recruiter, Boston-based, ENR Top 25 ranked Construction Management Firm
Another client put the cultural fit plainly, saying their recruiter felt more like a member of the team than a third-party agency, and that every candidate arrived already understanding the company's culture.
It fits the hiring pattern most companies actually have: steady, specialized roles that matter, at a volume that does not justify a full-time recruiter. You get senior recruiting expertise applied to your business specifically, continuity from one search to the next, and predictable engagement instead of contingency fees that spike with every senior role. As one client noted, the value shows up against the alternatives: candidate quality "far superior" to other sourcing channels, on a model that scales to need.
Because the relationship is ongoing, the value compounds. The recruiter who filled your last role already understands the next one. Nothing resets between searches the way it does when you hand each opening to a new agency contact. And every placement is permanent and built to last, which is reflected in an 85% long-term placement success rate and an average time-to-fill under 9 weeks.
Fractional recruiting is how you engage the full Source and Recruit process on an ongoing basis: sourcing, AI-assisted outbound, assessment, references, and benchmarking, all run by a recruiter who knows your business rather than meeting it fresh each time. For companies hiring steadily across the year, it is the most efficient way to get all of it.
Is this temp staffing or contract labor? No. The placements are permanent. "Fractional" refers to how you engage the recruiter, a share of a dedicated professional's time, not to temporary workers.
How is it different from a contingency agency? A contingency agency is paid only when a placement is made, so its model is optimized for speed and volume within a specific niche.
A fractional partner is retained, embedded in the business, and focused on long-term fit and continuity. That is why our success rate is 85%, compared with an approximate 25% success rate among even the best contingency firms across the roles they support.
Because we are compensated for every search we work on—not only the fraction that results in a placement—our fractional fees are substantially lower. It is a more aligned, efficient, and effective way to work.
Do we have enough hiring to justify it? If you hire steadily but not enough to warrant a full-time recruiter, this model is built for exactly that middle ground. It scales to your volume.
What happens between searches? Whenever possible, the relationship and the institutional knowledge carry forward, so your next search starts with context instead of a cold brief.
Want a recruiter embedded in your hiring? Talk to our team
