A company director needs an accountant, a production manager, a team of twenty agents for a call centre. They have neither the time nor the method to sort a hundred applications, verify qualifications, run structured interviews. They call a consultancy. What the consultancy sells them is a process: understanding the position, finding candidates, assessing them, presenting a few, supporting the decision, guaranteeing a replacement if the hire fails. At no point does the consultancy decide. Its value lies in the quality of the pre-selection, the speed, and the honesty of what it says about each candidate — including their weaknesses.
The brief: understanding the position before looking for the person
The brief is the first service, and the one most often rushed. The consultancy questions the employer about the real position — not the description copied from a job site —: the tasks of the first three months, the skills without which the hire will fail, those that can be learnt, the real salary, the team, the line manager, the reasons the previous holder left. It asks awkward questions: why did the last two accountants leave within a year? A consultancy that does not ask them will look for the wrong profile.
Out of that brief comes a job description validated by the employer, with a salary range. Searching without a known salary wastes everyone’s time: good candidates ask for the figure on the first call.
Sourcing: looking where the candidates are
The consultancy posts the vacancy, but above all it searches actively: its pool of candidates already met, professional networks, schools and training centres, referrals, direct approaches to people in post for rare profiles. That is the difference between a consultancy and a job board: the board waits, the consultancy goes looking.
Sourcing is done with respect for the people approached. A candidate in post contacted by a consultancy is entitled to discretion; their application does not circulate without their agreement, and their current employer is never contacted without explicit authorisation.
Assessment: structured interviews, not impressions
The consultancy conducts the first interviews, verifies qualifications and references, and depending on the position runs tests — technical, language, reasoning, role plays. The structured interview, where every candidate receives the same job-related questions and is scored on the same criteria, reduces arbitrariness and allows comparison. The International Labour Organization recalls that skills are proven by what a person can do, not only by a title: a competent consultancy looks at the real experience behind the qualification, and knows how to recognise know-how acquired outside school.
Reference checks are done with the candidate’s agreement, with people they designate or who are identifiable — a former manager, not a friend. The consultancy notes what was said and reports it faithfully to the employer.
The shortlist: a few candidates, with their weaknesses
The consultancy presents a short list — generally three to five candidates — with a report on each: background, test results, strengths, points to watch, salary expectations, availability. A report that mentions no weakness is suspect; a consultancy that mentions them earns the employer’s trust for the next assignment.
Then the employer receives, decides, negotiates and signs. The consultancy may advise — on the salary offered, on how to convince a hesitant candidate —, but the hiring decision is not its to make, and that is as it should be: it is the employer who will live with the person hired.
The guarantee and the price
The consultancy is paid by the employer, generally as a percentage of the annual salary of the position filled, sometimes as a flat fee for volume recruitment, with a replacement guarantee if the candidate leaves or is let go during the probation period. That guarantee is what aligns the consultancy’s interest with the employer’s: a badly assessed candidate costs the consultancy a second search for free.
The consultancy never charges the candidate. No file fee, registration fee, compulsory training fee or “introduction” fee. The ILO’s general principles for fair recruitment are unambiguous: recruitment fees and related costs must not be borne by workers. A firm that charges candidates is not a recruitment consultancy; it is a seller of hope, and the first sign of an abusive practice.
Candidate data
A consultancy accumulates CVs, test results, references, sometimes sensitive information. It is responsible for them: it tells candidates what it keeps, why, for how long; it forwards an application only with agreement; it deletes what no longer has a purpose; it protects its files. The African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection sets out these principles of purpose, consent and security, which national laws implement. A consultancy that sells a candidate file or sends a CV to ten employers without telling the person betrays two clients at once.
HR advice: what comes after recruitment
Many consultancies add to recruitment support for their clients’ HR practices: drafting contracts compliant with local law, salary scales, job descriptions, annual review procedures, internal regulations, outsourced payroll, social security filings. This advice is useful to small companies without an HR department — provided the consultancy knows the country’s labour code precisely and does not copy a template from elsewhere. A non-compliant employment contract is the first poisoned gift a consultancy can give a client.
In the African context
The first reality of recruitment on the continent is the imbalance between the number of candidates and the number of formal jobs. A vacancy for an accountant or a sales representative can receive several hundred applications within days, a majority from young graduates without experience. The consultancy provides a real service here: sorting methodically, answering candidates — even to say no —, and sparing the employer from choosing by connection or by fatigue. That imbalance also feeds abusive practices: fake agencies collecting “file fees”, fictitious advertisements harvesting CVs, intermediaries selling jobs. The honest consultancy stands out first by a simple, displayed rule: the candidate never pays.
The second reality is the uncertain value of qualifications. Between serious institutions, outfits that sell titles, and the real careers of competent people trained on the job, the consultancy must verify — with the institution, through practical tests, through references — rather than believe. That verification is a significant part of what the employer is buying.
The third reality is that of rare profiles. Some positions — technical managers, industrial maintenance specialists, experienced finance staff, operations directors — find few candidates locally, and the consultancy searches in the diaspora or in neighbouring countries. This raises the question of return or relocation conditions, a competitive salary, housing, children’s schooling; a consultancy that can present those conditions honestly to a candidate abroad avoids failure in the first year.
Labour law, next, varies from one country to another and is often poorly known by small companies: fixed-term contracts renewable or not, probation, notice, social security registration, minimum wage. A consultancy that helps its client hire by the rules spares them the employment disputes that follow, a few months later, a rushed recruitment. The formal sector remains a minority of total employment; every declared hire the consultancy supports is a step towards social protection for the employee.
There remains the question of fairness: recruitment through family, regional or community connections is common, and the consultancy is sometimes asked to dress it up with the appearance of a procedure. Its long-term value lies in refusing: presenting candidates assessed on job-related criteria, and writing in its report what it actually found.
Launching the consultancy: a network rather than capital
The trade requires almost no material investment: an office where candidates can be received with dignity, a computer, an applicant tracking tool, a few tests. It does require a network, knowledge of the target sectors, the ability to run a structured interview and documentary rigour. Many consultancies are born from a former HR manager or a consultant who first worked in a specific sector — banking, telecoms, mining, hospitality — and knows it from the inside.
The consultancy’s website should state clearly what it does for employers — method, lead times, guarantee, pricing — and what it does not do to candidates: no fees. A page for candidates explaining the process and how data is handled attracts the best profiles, who also choose whom they entrust their career to.
Two reports, one chief accountant
An employer was hesitating between two candidates presented for a chief accountant position. The report on the first said everything he could do; the report on the second added, under points to watch, that he had never managed a team and had said so himself in interview. The employer chose the second, arranging support for the management side. Two years later, he is still in post. The consultancy did not decide; it told the truth, and that is why it was called again.