How working with a recruiter really works.

Who pays, and why it matters

The employer pays. Always. You never pay anything.

When an employer hires me to fill a seat, they pay a fee, typically a percentage of the new hire's first year base salary. That fee is paid by the company, after you start. Not by you, not out of your paycheck, not deducted from your salary.

The flip side is worth saying out loud too: because the employer is paying a real fee, they expect me to bring them people they could not easily find themselves. That is why a recruiter may pass on you for a role even when you are perfectly capable of doing it. It is usually not a judgment about you.

Who a recruiter actually works for

Here is the part my industry tends to blur. The employer is my client. You are not. I am paid by them and I am accountable to them.

Anyone who tells you a recruiter "works for the candidate" is selling you something. What an honest recruiter can promise you is different, and more useful:

• Nothing happens to your information without your permission. Your resume does not move until you say yes to a named employer.
• You get told the truth about where you stand, including when the answer is no, and including the actual reason.
• You are not strung along. If the role is filled, or you are out, you hear it from me rather than from silence.
• Your interests get advocated for in the negotiation, because a deal that falls apart or a hire who quits in four months is a loss for me too.

That is a real relationship with real value in it. It is just not the same as representation, and you should know which one you are in.

The four kinds, and how to tell them apart

People use "recruiter," "headhunter," "staffing agency," and "HR" interchangeably. They are genuinely different jobs, and what you should expect from each one is different.

For transparency: Waymark is contingency, direct hire, Western New York only. If you are placed through me you are the employer's employee from day one, on their payroll, with their benefits. You are never employed by Waymark. And I do not do temp or contract work, so if that is what you need, an actual staffing agency will serve you better and I will tell you so.

The submission rule, and why you must never break it

This is the single most practical thing in this guide. Read it twice.

How to protect yourself, and it is easy:

1. Keep a list of every place you have applied, directly or through anyone else, with dates. A note on your phone is enough. Most people cannot remember by week six, and that is exactly when it bites.
2. Require the company name before you consent. Any legitimate recruiter will tell you who the employer is before sending anything. If someone wants blanket permission to shop your resume around without naming who they are sending it to, say no. That is the whole ballgame.
3. Say so immediately if you have already applied there. "I applied to them directly in July." Not a problem, and it saves everyone. Hiding it is what causes damage.
4. Give permission per employer, not in general. One yes per company, every time.

Most presentation rights last a set window, commonly somewhere in the range of six to twelve months, depending on the agreement between the recruiter and the employer. If you were presented to a company last spring and it did not work out, ask before anyone sends you back in.

What actually happens, step by step

1. Your resume arrives. Either you applied to a posted role, sent a general application, or I found you.
2. Screening call, roughly twenty to thirty minutes. What you do now, what you want next, your number, your commute limits, your timeline, whether you are working and need discretion. I tell you what is actually open, including the pay range and the parts of the job people do not love.
3. You consent, by name. I tell you the employer. You say yes or no. Nothing leaves my hands before that.
4. Submission. Your resume goes over with a written summary of why you fit, which is a real part of the value. A hiring manager reading a two paragraph explanation of your background reads your resume differently than one pulling it cold out of a pile of ninety.
5. Feedback, and this is where recruiters earn or lose your trust. You should hear something within a few business days, including a no. If a client goes quiet, you should hear that they went quiet.
6. Interview, and prep beforehand. This is the biggest structural advantage of going through a recruiter. I know who is interviewing you, what they asked the last three candidates, what they passed on people for, and what they care about. Take the prep call. The interview guide covers the rest.
7. Debrief both directions. I ask how it went before I hear from them, because your read matters and because when they raise a concern I want to have already heard your side of it.
8. Offer and negotiation. I usually know the employer's actual flexibility, and I can test a number without you having to risk the relationship doing it yourself.
9. Resignation, start date, and the first few weeks. A good recruiter helps you resign cleanly, prepares you for the counteroffer, and checks in after you start. If you are unhappy at ninety days, that is a problem for me too.

What to tell a recruiter, even when it is uncomfortable

Everything in this list is something I would rather know up front than discover late, because late is when it kills a deal.

• Your actual number. Not a bluff. If you need seventy, say seventy. I will tell you honestly whether that exists in this market for this kind of work, and if it does not, you have learned something valuable for free.
• Everywhere you have applied. See the submission rule.
• Your real commute limit, and be honest with yourself. People accept a forty five minute each way drive in September and quit in February when the Thruway closes. Think about this in January terms.
• Whether you are working and need confidentiality. Say it plainly. It changes how and when I contact you and what I do with references.
• Anything that will surface in a background check. A conviction, a credit issue for a finance seat, a degree you did not finish. Told up front, these are often manageable. Discovered at the background check stage, they end the process, because now it looks like concealment.
• Other processes you are in, and your timeline. If you have a final round elsewhere next week, that is leverage, and it lets me push a client to move.
• Your dealbreakers. No weekends. Must be home by five for daycare. Cannot travel. Will not do outbound calls. Say them early. Every one of these is fine. None of them is fine at offer stage for the first time.
• Why you are leaving, honestly. I need to help you frame it for an employer. I cannot do that if I am hearing the polished version too.

What you can keep to yourself

You are not obligated to disclose everything, and a decent recruiter will not push on these.

• Your current or past salary. In New York, employers are prohibited from asking about your salary history or relying on it in setting your pay. That protection has been in effect statewide since January 6, 2020. You can decline to answer and pivot to what you are targeting. The pay guide covers exactly how.
• Age, date of birth, graduation year. Not relevant, not required, and legitimately risky for an employer to be collecting.
• Marital status, children, pregnancy, family plans. None of it is anyone's business, and asking it is a problem for the asker.
• Religion, national origin, citizenship details beyond the yes or no of whether you are legally authorized to work in the United States.
• Disability or medical history. Only the question of whether you can perform the job's actual functions, with or without accommodation, is on the table.
• Your reference list, until you are genuinely close. Do not let your references be called four times for four roles you are only loosely being considered for. You will burn them, and you need them.

If a recruiter presses on any of these after you decline, that tells you everything you need to know about the rest of the relationship.

What a recruiter can and cannot do for you

That last one on the left is worth dwelling on. In a market the size of Buffalo, a meaningful share of good jobs at small employers never get posted at all. An owner with a hundred people and no HR department does not want three hundred unscreened resumes in their personal inbox, so they call someone. Being on a recruiter's list is how you see those, and it is the single strongest argument for sending a resume in even when nothing posted fits you today.

Warning signs: walk away

• They ask you for money. Any fee, for any reason, in order to be considered for a job. Placement fee, resume fee, "database access," background check fee, training you must buy. Walk. This is the brightest line there is.
• They will not name the employer before submitting you. Confidential searches are completely normal, and the employer's name may not be on the public posting. But before your resume moves, you get told who it is going to. Full stop.
• They sent your resume without asking. The submission rule exists for your protection. Someone who breaks it is risking your candidacy to protect their fee.
• The job in the conversation is not the job in the posting. Bait and switch. You called about an accounting seat and now it is a commission only sales role.
• Pressure to accept fast, with a manufactured deadline. A real offer survives you reading it overnight.
• They will not tell you the pay range. In New York, a posting for a job that will be performed in state has to include a good faith range. If there is no range and no straight answer when you ask, something is off.
• They ask for your Social Security number, date of birth, or bank details early. Those come at the background check and onboarding stage, through the employer's system, after an offer. Not in an email from a recruiter you have spoken to once.
• The whole thing lives in text messages and a personal email address, there is no real web presence, and the "interview" is a chat app. That is a recruitment scam, they are common, and the goal is your identity or a fake check.
• They talk about other candidates by name. If they gossip about other people's searches to you, yours is being discussed elsewhere.

How to get the most out of a recruiter

1. Pick ones who actually work your lane. Two or three recruiters who specialize in your function and your geography are worth more than fifteen generalists. A recruiter who does not work your field cannot help you, no matter how much they like you.
2. Answer the phone, and call back the same day. Speed genuinely matters. Roles get filled in two weeks around here. The candidate who returns the call Tuesday morning gets the interview slot.
3. Be a straight shooter. The whole relationship runs on the recruiter being able to represent you accurately. Surprises hurt you far more than the underlying facts ever would.
4. Take the prep call. Every time. It is free inside information about the person deciding your candidacy, and people skip it constantly.
5. Tell them when you are out. If you accept something else or decide to stay put, say so. It costs you one text and it means you are remembered well the next time, which in a market this small matters more than people think.
6. Ask for the real feedback and then actually use it. "What would have made me stronger for that role?" The answer is often specific and fixable, and it is the most valuable thing a recruiter gives you for free.
7. Stay in touch every couple of months when you are not looking. One short email. The people I place fastest are the ones I already know.

Working with more than one

You should, and it is completely normal. Nobody has every job. Two things to manage:

Track submissions obsessively, so two recruiters never send you to the same place. And do not hide that you are working with others. I do not care that you are talking to three recruiters. I care a great deal about accidentally double submitting you and getting you disqualified.

Be careful with the ones who ask you to sign an exclusive. For a job seeker, exclusivity is almost never in your interest. You are not obligated to give anyone the exclusive right to represent you, and for most office and professional roles there is no good reason to.

This guide is general information for job seekers, not legal advice. New York employment law changes, and how a rule applies depends on your specific situation. If you believe an employer has broken the law in how it treated you, talk to the New York State Department of Labor or an employment attorney.