Fear of Commitment
Debbie Morrison • June 16, 2021
Fear of Commitment
Recruitment firms have been around long enough that they’ve diverged, taking different approaches to their work in some major and some minor ways. And, since we all need to make a living, the way we charge our clients is no exception. In this respect, recruitment firms tend to come down on one side of the fence or the other: retainer or contingency. In today’s blog, I’d like to share with you the approach we take, and more importantly, why it’s for the benefit of our clients.
Some definitions first. Under a contingency fee agreement, a recruitment firm is paid only when a client company hires a candidate presented by that firm. A retainer agreement, on the other hand, means that installments of the fee are paid to the firm while the search is underway – typically, a portion of it up front to begin the search, and usually when a milestone is reached at some point in the middle.
From a client’s perspective, a contingency agreement can seem more appealing. There’s no commitment, no liability unless the recruiter actually comes through for you. And it may feel like you’re casting a wider net. Since you only have to pay if you hire someone, you can have several firms all working away at the same time. Competition would make them try harder, it would seem. And you can even keep sourcing on your own as well! If you happen to find a hirable candidate before the firms do, you don’t have to pay anyone.
Why, then, would you commit to using one firm, and agree to pay towards a hire you haven’t yet made?
There are some good reasons for this. And sure, we’re biased; most of our work is conducted on a retained basis. In part, this is because we are specialized professionals at the work we do. We know that we earn our fee through the hard and thorough work we do during the course of a search. We work this way not just because it’s better for us, though, but because it’s better for our clients and candidates as well.
First, let me address the question of exclusivity. While it may seem to be a good thing to have multiple recruitment firms competing to ‘win’ on the same search, the reverse is actually true. For any given search, the supply of real candidates – candidates that are truly qualified, a good fit for our client, and at a point in their career to consider the change – is finite. Let me draw this comparison. If you were selling your house, would it make sense to have a dozen agents’ signs on your lawn? Working with one listing agent – assuming they’re good at what they do – reaches the market just as well, and with a lot less confusion on the part of prospective buyers.
Now put yourself in the position of a candidate. The first time you’re contacted by a contingency recruiter, you might be interested in the opportunity. The second time you’re contacted – by a different recruiter – you’re probably a bit confused. By the time the eighth recruiter has called you about the same position, how do you think you’d feel? Mostly just frustrated, I’d bet. And on top of that, your estimation of the hiring company has become tarnished. They must be desperate and disorganized.
When we work with a company on a retained basis, it gives us the ability to fully map the marketplace, identifying and vetting all prospective candidates to ensure we leave no stone unturned. In short, our clients benefit from a more thorough search when working exclusively with us, than companies who work with multiple firms.
When we approach candidates on behalf of our client and tell them we’re working on a retained basis, it’s a different kind of conversation. The candidate understands that the relationship is a partnership, and the hire is one that the company is taking seriously.
Then there’s a question of pressure. When we first contact a prospective candidate who’s happily employed – someone who would make the move as a matter of choice, rather than necessity – the decision to consider a change is a significant one. When working on a contingency basis, recruiters have to move quickly. They apply pressure on the candidate to make a decision on the spot. In contrast, when working with our clients, we can take the time to nurture their interest. In fact, in many cases we’re able to present candidates who wouldn’t even have been interested if approached with a high-pressure pitch.
As candidates move through the interview process, we devote a lot of time to keeping the lines of communication open. When our clients select a finalist that they want to hire, they trust us to ensure that we’ve covered all the bases – checking and rechecking for interest, speaking openly with the candidate about potential counter-offers, and more – so that when an offer is made, their chosen candidate is ready to accept.
When a recruitment becomes a race to the finish line – a chaotic rush to throw as much as possible against the wall in the hope that something will stick – these things don’t always happen. Firms working on a contingency basis simply don’t have time to devote to a search when it’s possible – even likely – that they won’t generate a fee.
Do you really want to be caught up in that race? Recruitment – done right, and done well – takes commitment. Our clients commit to us because they know we commit fully to them.
Want to know more? Get in touch
and let’s talk.
You don’t hear about it on the nightly news. There’s no breaking story. No panic. No protests. Just rows of vegetables being pulled out of the ground with no plan to replant. Just farmers who no longer believe there’s a future for them here. Just quiet decisions — to sell, to walk away, to stop. And if you ask around the industry, they’ll tell you the same thing: It’s not just one bad season. It’s a slow death by a thousand margins. 1 in 3 growers are preparing to leaveIn September 2024, AUSVEG released a national sentiment report with a statistic that should have set off alarms in every capital city: 34% of Australian vegetable growers were considering exiting the industry in the next 12 months. Another one-third said they’d leave if offered a fair price for their farm. Source: AUSVEG Industry Sentiment Report 2024 (PDF) These aren’t abstract hypotheticals. These are real decisions, already in motion. For many, it’s not about profitability anymore, it’s about survival. This isn’t burnout. It’s entrapment. Behind the numbers are people whose entire identity is tied to a profession that no longer feeds them. Many are asset-rich but cash-poor. They own the land. But the land owns them back. Selling means walking away from decades of history. Staying means bleeding capital, month by month, in a system where working harder delivers less. Every year, input costs rise, fuel, fertiliser, compliance. But the farmgate price doesn’t move. Or worse, it drops. Retail World Magazine reports that even though national vegetable production increased 3% in 2023–24, the total farmgate value fell by $140 million. Growers produced more and earned less. That’s not a market. That’s a trap. What no one wants to say aloud The truth is this: many growers are only staying because they can’t leave. If you’re deep in debt, if your farm is tied to multi-generational ownership, if you’ve invested everything in equipment, infrastructure, or land access, walking away isn’t easy. It’s a last resort. So instead, you stay. You cut your hours. Delay maintenance. Avoid upgrades. Cancel the next round of planting. You wait for something to shift, interest rates, weather, prices and you pretend that waiting is strategy. According to the latest fruitnet.com survey, over 50% of vegetable growers say they’re financially worse off than a year ago. And nearly 40% expect conditions to deteriorate further. This isn’t about optimism or resilience. It’s about dignity and the quiet erosion of it. Supermarkets won’t save them, and they never planned to In the current model, supermarket pricing doesn’t reflect real-world farm economics. Retailers demand year-round consistency, aesthetic perfection, and lower prices. They don’t absorb rising input costs, they externalise them. They offer promotions funded not by their marketing budgets, but by the growers’ margins. Farmers take the risk. Retailers take the profit. And because the power imbalance is so deeply entrenched, there’s no real negotiation, just quiet coercion dressed up as "category planning." Let’s talk about what’s actually broken This isn’t just a market failure. It’s a policy failure. Australia’s horticulture system has been built on: Decades of deregulated wholesale markets Lack of collective bargaining power for growers Retailer consolidation that has created a virtual duopoly Export-focused incentives that bypass smaller domestic producers There’s no meaningful floor price for key produce lines. No national enforcement of fair dealing. No public database that links supermarket shelf price to farmgate return. Which means growers, like James, can be driven into loss-making supply contracts without ever seeing the true economics of their product downstream. But the real silence? It’s from consumers. Here’s what no one wants to admit: We say we care about “buying local.” We say we value the farmer’s role. We share those viral posts about strawberries going unsold or milk prices being unfair. And then we complain about a $4 lettuce. We opt for the cheapest bag of carrots. We walk past the "imperfect" produce bin. We frown at the cost of organic and click “Add to Cart” on whatever’s half price. We’re not just bystanders. We’re part of the equation. What happens when the growers go? At first, very little. Supermarkets will find substitutes. Importers will fill gaps. Large agribusinesses will expand into spaces vacated by smaller players. Prices will stay low, until they don’t. But over time, we’ll notice: Produce that travels further and lasts less. Fewer independent growers at farmer’s markets. Entire regions losing their growing identity. National food security becoming a campaign promise instead of a reality. And when the climate throws something serious at us, drought, flood, global supply shock, we’ll realise how little resilience we’ve preserved. So what do we do? We start by telling the truth. Australia is not food secure. Not if 1 in 3 growers are planning to exit. The market isn’t working. Not when prices rise at the shelf and fall at the farmgate. The solution isn’t scale. It’s fairness, visibility, and rebalancing power. That means: Mandating cost-reflective contracts between retailers and suppliers Enabling collective bargaining rights for growers Building transparent data systems linking production costs to consumer prices Introducing transition finance for smaller producers navigating reform and climate pressure And holding supermarkets publicly accountable for margin extraction But more than anything, it means recognising what we’re losing, before it's gone. Final word If you ate a vegetable today, it likely came from someone who’s considered giving up in the past year. Not because they don’t care. But because caring doesn’t pay. This isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about sovereignty, over what we eat, how we grow it, and who gets to stay in the system. Because the next time you see rows of green stretching to the horizon, you might want to ask: How many of these fields are already planning their last harvest?
If you're leading an FMCG or food manufacturing business right now, you're probably still talking about growth. Your board might be chasing headcount approvals. Your marketing team’s pitching a new brand campaign. Your category team’s assuming spend will bounce. But your customer? They’ve already moved on. Quietly. Like they always do. The illusion of resilience FMCG has always felt protected, “essential” by nature. People still eat, wash, shop. It’s easy to assume downturns pass around us, not through us. But this isn’t 2020. Recessions in 2025 won’t look like lockdowns. They’ll look like volume drops that no promo can fix. Shrinking margins on products that no longer carry their premium. Quiet shelf deletions you weren’t warned about. The data’s already there. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, consumer spending is slowing in real terms , even as inflation eases. The Reserve Bank confirmed in May: household consumption remains subdued amid weak real income growth . And over 80% of Australians have cut back on discretionary food spending , according to Finder. They’re still shopping, just not like they used to. A managing director at a national food manufacturer told me recently: “We won a new product listing in April. By July, it was marked for deletion. The velocity wasn’t there, but neither was the shopper. We’d forecasted like 2022 never ended. Rookie mistake.” That one stuck with me. Because I’ve heard it before, just in different words.