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Comment by marcell | Hacker News Reader

Technical recruiters make ridiculous amounts of money for moving people between companies. If this is successful it will be very lucrative for FogCreek.

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But that's because traditional recruiters usually take a % of the person's salary.

Stackoverflow only charges a subscription fee for searching the database so they probably won't make as much.

  If you are a hiring manager, you can test-drive our search interface any time and get an idea of how many matches you'll find. No surprises here. But if you'd like to view candidate details and make contact, you'll need a subscription:

    * 1 week subscription is $500
    * 1 month subscription is $1,000
    * 6 month subscription is $3,000
    * 1 year subscription is $5,000

Perhaps it will be so lucrative because employers will get sick of paying percentages of salaries in recruiter's fees and so many of them will sign up for this more-modest subscription fee?

Roughly how many points does a recruiter get?

30 - 40% in my experience in the UK. It's pretty sickening.

That's the default. If you're crafty there are ways to force it down over the course of the arrangement.

I've heard 10% at my current company.

20% is standard. Companies with high standards will often pay more. (One company offered 50% for a very high-level position).

The percentages are out of control. 20-25% makes it really hard to even consider using recruiters. I only form relationships with some of them to get an agreement that they won't recruit from my firm.

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