bobcheck

AI and Fee Recovery: The Next Frontier

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:58:12 GMT

Exploring how AI-powered pattern recognition, predictive analytics, and candidate matching are transforming revenue protection for recruitment agencies

Artificial intelligence is already transforming recruitment. Most agencies use it to source candidates faster, screen CVs, and improve hiring efficiency. But one of its most valuable applications is still largely overlooked: protecting the fees you have already earned.

Missed fees, often called backdoor hires, rarely happen because someone deliberately ignored the problem. They happen because tracking candidate movement manually is almost impossible at scale. Recruiters rely on memory, occasional LinkedIn checks, and fragmented CRM notes. When you are managing hundreds or thousands of introductions, things get missed. AI changes that.

Unlike manual processes, AI continuously monitors patterns, relationships, and career movements. It does not forget to check. It does not rely on instinct. It analyses thousands of signals at once and identifies connections that would otherwise remain invisible.

This shift is happening at the same time AI adoption across recruitment is accelerating. Around 87 percent of companies now use AI driven recruitment tools, and more than half of talent leaders consider it their top technology priority.¹ The focus has largely been on hiring efficiency, but the same technology is proving even more powerful in protecting revenue .

From reactive recovery to proactive protection

Traditional fee recovery is reactive. A recruiter notices a LinkedIn update months later. An awkward conversation follows. Evidence is limited, relationships are strained, and recovery becomes difficult. AI makes this proactive.

By analysing historical introductions, hiring patterns, and candidate movement, AI can identify when a previously introduced candidate joins a client. In many cases, it can even predict which candidates are most at risk before the hire happens.

This is possible because AI excels at three things humans struggle to do consistently at scale.

First , pattern recognition. AI can analyse hiring behaviour across clients, roles, and timelines to identify systematic backdoor hiring patterns. For example, it may reveal that a client regularly hires candidates six months after rejecting them, often under slightly different job titles.

Second , predictive analysis. By learning from past placements, AI can flag candidates and clients with a high probability of future missed fees. This allows agencies to engage early, clarify ownership, and protect their position.

Third, intelligent matching. Candidates change job titles, locations, and profile details. AI matches individuals across multiple signals, including career history, skills, and networks, rather than relying on exact name matches alone. This dramatically improves detection accuracy.

The result is simple. Agencies move from discovering lost revenue too late to protecting it in real time.

What this means in practice

Agencies using AI powered fee protection are already seeing measurable impact.

Some have identified six figure sums in previously missed fees simply by uncovering patterns they could not see before. Others receive early alerts that allow them to address ownership before a hire becomes contentious.

Even more importantly, these conversations become easier. Instead of suspicion or assumption, agencies can rely on clear, factual evidence. This keeps discussions professional and protects client relationships.

The scale advantage is equally important. Tracking ten thousand candidates manually would take hundreds of hours each month. AI can do it continuously in the background.

AI does not replace recruiters. It protects them

This is not about replacing human judgement. It is about strengthening it.

AI handles the heavy lifting:

• Monitoring candidate movement continuously
• Identifying patterns across large datasets
• Prioritising risk and highlighting potential missed fees

Recruiters remain in control of the decisions that matter. They manage client relationships, interpret context, and decide when and how to act.

AI simply ensures they are not operating with blind spots.

The competitive advantage agencies cannot ignore

Recruitment agencies are operating in an environment where margins are under pressure, competition is intense, and every placement carries more weight than ever. Most agencies focus their energy on generating new roles and new candidates, but growth does not only come from what you win next. It also comes from protecting what you have already earned. Fees are lost quietly every year, not because teams are careless, but because manual tracking cannot keep pace with the volume and complexity of modern recruitment.

AI powered fee recovery changes that dynamic. It gives agencies a structural advantage by continuously monitoring candidate movement, improving visibility across introductions, and identifying revenue that would otherwise disappear unnoticed. Instead of relying on memory, occasional checks, or chance discoveries, agencies can operate with confidence that their work is being protected in the background.

As AI becomes a standard part of recruitment infrastructure, the gap between agencies will widen. Some will continue relying on manual processes and accept missed fees as an unavoidable cost of doing business. Others will use technology to ensure every introduction is accounted for and every opportunity to recover revenue is visible.

AI is already embedded across recruitment. The real question now is not whether it will play a role, but whether it is working to protect your revenue or leaving it exposed.

References

DemandSage, HeroHunt, SmartRecruiters, and Apollo Technical AI recruitment statistics reports, 2024 to 2025

The Recruitment Agency CFO Playbook

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:31:44 GMT

Financial Visibility, Missed Fee Prevention, and Revenue Protection
A strategic guide for Finance Directors protecting revenue in modern recruitment agencies of every size

Executive Summary

The recruitment CFO role has changed. Finance leaders are now expected to drive growth, deploy technology, and protect revenue, not just report on it. Yet recruitment remains one of the few industries where revenue can be earned but never invoiced.

Backdoor hires occur in approximately 1 in 912 candidate introductions, while 37 percent of CRM users report losing revenue due to poor data quality and incomplete tracking. These are not operational issues. They are financial blind spots.

For smaller agencies, this may mean tens of thousands in lost EBITDA. For larger agencies, it can reach hundreds of thousands annually.

This playbook focuses on three priorities:

• Financial visibility so forecasts reflect reality
• Revenue protection so earned fees are collected
• Technology deployment so finance teams scale without adding cost

Because recruitment finance is not just about managing revenue. It is about ensuring you actually receive it.

The Hidden Revenue Problem in Recruitment

Recruitment revenue is unpredictable by nature. Introductions made today may convert months later, or never be recorded at all. This creates a structural risk.

When a candidate is hired without the agency’s knowledge, the work has been done but the revenue never appears in financial reports. The placement exists commercially, but not financially.

This creates three CFO risks:

• Forecasts appear inaccurate without explanation

• Profitability is understated

• Strategic decisions are based on incomplete data

Even a two percent leakage rate in a £5 million agency represents £100,000 in lost revenue.

The issue is not performance. It is visibility.

Financial Visibility: Knowing Your True Revenue

Most recruitment finance teams track revenue once placements are invoiced. But CFOs need visibility before that point.

The key question is not how many placements you invoiced. It is how many placements actually happened.

Without this, forecasts are inherently flawed.

An agency making 10,000 introductions annually with a five percent conversion rate expects 500 placements. But if backdoor hires occur at industry averages, some of those placements will never be invoiced.

This is not lost pipeline. It is lost revenue.

Financial visibility allows CFOs to:

• Forecast more accurately
• Understand true conversion performance
• Identify revenue risk early

Revenue protection starts with knowing what exists.

Revenue Protection: From Reactive to Systematic
Historically, missed fees were discovered accidentally - a recruiter notices a LinkedIn update or a client mentions a hire months late. This is not a process. It is luck.

Modern finance teams treat missed fees like accounts receivable. They monitor, detect, and recover systematically.

This shift changes outcomes:

• Revenue is identified earlier
• Finance teams act on evidence rather than assumptions
• Fee recovery becomes consistent rather than occasional

This applies equally to agencies making hundreds of placements or tens of thousands.

Revenue protection is not about aggressive recovery . It is about ensuring commercial agreements are honoured.

Why This Matters for Agencies of All Sizes

Revenue leakage is often assumed to be a large agency problem. It is not.

Large agencies lose more in absolute terms because of volume. Smaller agencies lose more in proportion to their size.

A single missed £10,000 fee can have a significant impact:

• Reduced profit margin
• Reduced cash flow
• Reduced confidence in forecasts

Smaller agencies also have less margin for invisible losses.

Revenue protection is therefore not an enterprise feature. It is a financial control.

Finance leaders are increasingly investing in tools that improve accuracy, reduce manual work, and strengthen financial control.

Automation allows finance teams to:

• Identify hires they did not know about
• Maintain clear audit trails
• Support fee recovery with evidence
• Improve revenue forecasting accuracy

This is not about replacing recruiters. It is about supporting finance teams with visibility.

Technology turns unknown revenue into known revenue.

bobcheck exists for this purpose.

It integrates with ATS platforms such as Bullhorn, JobAdder, and Vincere and:

• Automatically identifies candidate employment changes
• Alerts finance teams when hires occur
• Creates evidence to support fee recovery

This creates visibility without adding administrative burden.

Most importantly, it ensures finance teams are not relying on chance to protect revenue.

A Shift in CFO Thinking

The most effective recruitment CFOs have moved from reactive reporting to proactive protection.

They recognise a simple truth.

Revenue protection is not about increasing revenue.

It is about ensuring revenue already earned is not lost.

This delivers clear financial advantages:

• Strengthens EBITDA without increasing sales activity
• Improves forecasting accuracy
• Improves financial control

It ensures financial reports reflect reality.

The Strategic Advantage

Agencies that implement systematic revenue protection gain three advantages:

• Improved financial accuracy
• Higher realised revenue
• Greater confidence in forecasting

This improves decision-making across the business.

It allows CFOs to:

• Invest with confidence
• Plan growth on reliable data
• Strengthen the financial foundation of the agency

Conclusion

Recruitment agencies invest heavily in generating placements. But without visibility, some of that value disappears.

The issue is rarely effort. It is awareness.

Modern CFOs are addressing this by implementing systems that ensure:

• Every placement is visible
• Every fee is tracked
• Every earned revenue opportunity is protected

bobcheck supports this shift.

Not as a growth tool.

As a financial control.

Because protecting revenue is not optional.

It is fundamental.

References
KPMG UK Report on Jobs https://www.validity.com/blog/crm-metrics/
UK Office for National Statistics Labour Market Data https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket
Industry CRM Data Quality Research https://www.validity.com/blog/crm-metrics/

2025 Benchmarking Report

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 04:07:15 GMT

Not all recruitment sectors face the same backdoor hire risk

After three years of tracking candidate movements across thousands of placements, one thing has become very clear. Some sectors lose significantly more revenue to missed fees than others. Understanding where the risk is highest, and why, is the first step towards protecting your agency’s income.

Backdoor hire rates by sector

Our analysis shows clear variation in how often candidate introductions result in untracked hires:

Construction and Engineering: 1 in 544 introductions
Healthcare and Life Sciences: 1 in 780 introductions
Technology: 1 in 850 introductions
Professional Services: 1 in 912 introductions

At first glance, these ratios may look abstract. The financial impact is anything but.

What this means in real terms

Take a construction recruitment agency sending 10,000 CVs per year.

Based on sector averages, that agency should expect around 18 backdoor hires annually if no tracking is in place. At an average fee of £4,500, that equates to £81,000 in invisible revenue that is never invoiced.

Now compare that with a professional services agency sending the same volume of CVs.

The lower risk profile still results in roughly 11 backdoor hires per year , or £49,500 in missed fees .

Lower risk does not mean low impact. It simply means the leakage is easier to overlook.

Why risk varies by sector

The differences are not about recruiter performance. They are driven by how each sector operates.

Construction and Engineering
Long project timelines mean candidates introduced early can be hired months later, often after roles change hands or projects restart. By the time the hire happens, the original introduction is forgotten.

Healthcare and Life Sciences
Staff banks, compliance checks, and delayed start dates create extended gaps between introduction and placement. Candidates move into roles quietly once compliance clears, outside normal CRM visibility.

Technology
Rapid candidate movement, contract switching, and company acquisitions make tracking difficult. Candidates introduced to one entity may join another within the same group without being flagged.

Professional Services
More formal HR processes and longer notice periods reduce risk, but do not remove it. Hires still occur months after introduction, particularly following recruiter departures.

The common thread across all sectors

Despite the differences, one pattern holds true everywhere.

Most backdoor hires occur between three and six months after the original introduction .

This is the point where manual tracking breaks down, recruiter ownership changes, and CRMs stop telling the full story.

Why this matters now

Revenue protection is not about recovering the odd missed fee.
It is about having confidence in your data.

Missed fees distort conversion rates, undermine forecast accuracy, and create uncertainty during audits, funding rounds, and exits.

If you are a specialist recruiter, your approach to revenue protection needs to reflect the realities of your sector.
One size does not fit all.

Download the full benchmark report

We have just published our 2025 Benchmark Report: Missed Fees by Sector, which breaks down:

Why each sector has a different risk profile
Real-world backdoor hire scenarios across construction, healthcare, technology, and professional services
The critical three to six month risk window in detail
Sector-specific action plans and contract recommendations

If you want a clear, data-backed view of where revenue is leaking in your market, the full report is essential reading.

Read the full benchmark report here

The Revenue Protection Guide

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 03:29:16 GMT

The Complete Guide to Revenue Protection for Recruitment Agencies

Missed placement fees cost UK recruitment agencies millions annually. If you're an agency owner, Finance Director, or Operations Manager, you know the pain of discovering a candidate you introduced six months ago is now working at your client without a fee being paid.

At bobcheck, we've helped recruitment agencies recover over £3.5 million in missed fees since 2022. This Revenue Protection Guide distils everything we've learned into practical, actionable strategies you can implement immediately.

What You'll Learn

• How to prevent missed fees before they happen - Contract terms, CRM best practices, and client education strategies that protect your revenue upfront

• What to do when you identify a backdoor hire - Step-by-step evidence gathering, professional client conversations, and fee recovery protocols that work

• Proven methods to recoup lost earnings - Legal frameworks, negotiation tactics, and documentation requirements that maximise recovery success rates

• Turning missed fees into training opportunities - How to analyse why backdoor hires occur and implement learning programmes that prevent recurrence

• The missed fee prevention checklist - A comprehensive audit tool for identifying blind spots in your current revenue protection processes

Why This Guide Matters

For recruitment agencies running contingent models, manually tracking thousands of candidate introductions is physically impossible. Once you reach a certain size, keeping tabs on who's where, chasing fees, and running watertight processes simply isn't viable anymore.

The result? Revenue slips through the cracks. Placements happen behind your back. Fees you've earned go uncollected because you don't know they exist.

This guide shows you how to: • Identify the specific gaps in your revenue protection • Implement systematic tracking that scales with your agency • Build evidence-based fee recovery processes • Use automation and technology to protect revenue without adding headcount

Created by Recruiters, for Recruiters

bobcheck was built to solve a problem every agency faces: candidates getting hired by clients without your knowledge or payment. Since launching in 2022, we've identified over 200 direct hires worth £3.5 million+ in recovered fees.

This isn't theory. It's battle-tested insight from agencies like Robert Walters, Trinnovo, NP Group, and Cobalt who've transformed revenue protection from reactive firefighting to proactive systematic processes.

Read your free Revenue Protection Guide today and turn missed fees into recovered revenue.

I've found a bob. Now what do I do?

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 23:34:13 GMT

What next steps should you take when you discover a back-door hire?

Imagine the scenario. Your agency has 50 dedicated and hard-working recruiters sending five CVs a week. Over the course of a year, this adds up to around 13,000 CVs.

That’s a lot. 

Now imagine that five people in your business leave. Several months later, you discover that a candidate they sent to an open position has started working there. Well done candidate! But it’s not celebration time for you. Because nobody followed up with that candidate and, as a result, your agency missed the fee.

Now, if you’re using manual methods to try and keep a handle on the thousands of CVs your recruiters send each year – let’s say tracking each CV or candidate in a spreadsheet – the chances are you might never even realise that you missed that fee. Alternatively, you might be aware of it, but not have the time or resource to follow up.

Finding missed fees with bobcheck

If you’re using bobcheck, this story goes a little differently.

Yes, your agency missed the fee, but the bobcheck system quickly alerted you to the ‘back-door hire’ – so now you’re in a strong position to recover those missed earnings.

You’ve found a bob: What should you do first?

Before you approach your client to discuss the bob, we’d recommend running through this checklist:

Do you have a candidate representation email confirming they were happy to work with your recruiter?
Did the CV get sent with your agency terms?
Are there overarching terms confirmed with your agency?
Did you have interviews arranged through your agency?
Did the candidate start within your standard representation timescales (typically six or 12 months)?
If the candidate is a contractor, did they go BACK to your client after the initial assignment finished?
If your recruiter left, did the client try and contact your agency?
If there was a VMS involved at the client site, did your recruiter log representation of the CV?
Are they an existing client or speculative account?

Going through this checklist should mean you’re confident that it’s appropriate for you to contact the client and begin a discussion about the back-door hire.

It also ensures you’ve got the relevant documentation to hand to prove (if you have to) that a bob did indeed occur.

So, what happens next?

How to discuss (and resolve) a missed fee

Every scenario is unique and specific to your firm; we know that client relationships can vary hugely.

We’d suggest the below as a useful starter for ten. You can then adjust to suit your own clients and situations.

Call the client to discuss the issue, based on all the evidence you have of the back-door hire.
Discuss the potential fee value missed and how to resolve.
Consider how you’d ideally like to resolve the missed fee. It doesn’t have to be financial compensation if there are other ways for you to recoup value from your client. You can get a bit creative this:
Do you obtain a retainer for a future role?
Do you request access to three exclusive jobs?
Do you take half of the fee for an exclusive job?
Or do you simply invoice for the fee?

Of course, if your client doesn’t pay, or if you’re dealing with a previous client and the relationship has ended, you might have to go down a legal route to recover losses.

As some of you might have already experienced, this can be a long, painful process – so we’d always proceed with caution...

What to do next

Although recovering missed fees is important, it shouldn’t be your only focus.

With bobcheck, we want to empower recruitment agencies to dig a bit deeper and understand why a bob has occurred.

Often there’ll be learnings you can take from the experience – ways you can improve your internal processes and prevent back-door hires from happening in the future.

By automating the tracking process, bobcheck can free up significant time in your team – leaving you with more capacity to invest in your bob prevention strategies, team training and housekeeping.

Ready to discover bobcheck?

bobcheck can’t guarantee that clients will always repay your missed fees (wouldn’t that be nice!). We can guarantee, however, that bobcheck makes finding missed fees faster and easier – and that puts you in a much stronger position when you need to reach out to clients to negotiate or discuss a resolution.

Designed for recruiters by recruiters, bobcheck is the only automated tool to identify behind-your-back hires and alert you to a missed fee.

We’d love to show you how bobcheck works and can make a difference to your business. Why not have a quick demo of the platform?

bobcheck vs Debt Recovery Firms: What’s the Difference?

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 01:13:46 GMT

Protect Client Relationships While Recovering Missed Recruitment Fees

Traditionally, recruitment agencies who discovered missed placement fees might turn to a debt recovery firm to recoup those lost earnings.

Some may still choose that approach today. But now that bobcheck's automated fee tracking is available, many recruitment businesses are choosing a different, relationship-focused solution.

In today's post we'll explain why we'd advise caution before going down the debt collector route, and outline why bobcheck offers a fundamentally different approach to recruitment fee protection.

What is bobcheck? Automated Fee Tracking for Recruitment Agencies

bobcheck is an automated candidate tracking tool which parses through your CVs and candidates to identify back-door hires (which we also refer to as 'bobs' – hence the name!) and missed placement fees.

Most recruitment agencies simply don't have the manpower or time to manually check back through their candidate databases and keep an eye out for back-door hires.

bobcheck automates this entire fee tracking process, turning checks that would take a human many (many) hours into the work of mere moments. With bobcheck in your recruitment tech stack, you should never miss a fee again.

Did you know? We can parse through 10,400 lines of data in just six minutes! It would take a human, checking publicly available data sources, 45 DAYS to do the same.

How Does bobcheck Compare to Debt Recovery Firms?

The Debt Recovery Approach

Debt collectors, or debt recovery firms, will act as a third party on your behalf to try and recover missed earnings from your client.

No doubt there are some reputable firms out there who do this work in a careful and well-managed way. But from our experience in the recruitment industry, turning to debt collectors feels heavy-handed, and can permanently damage your client relationships. We'd always recommend a discussion first, and keep debt recovery or legal action as a last resort.

The bobcheck Difference: Prevention Over Collection

Unlike debt recovery firms, bobcheck doesn't take a percentage of your missed fee. As a pure SaaS (Software as a Service) business, users simply pay a monthly subscription for automated fee tracking. With bobcheck, there's no hidden costs or taking a cut of your recovered earnings!

Key Differences:

Don't Go Down the Debt Recovery Route – Choose Prevention Instead

So, don't head down the debt recovery route (and don't mistake us for a debt collection firm either!). We're all about identification, education and prevention. And, perhaps most of all, we believe your client relationships are the most important thing. So instead of sending a debt recovery firm their way, open up a conversation instead, and find out if you can both reach a resolution.

With bobcheck's automated fee tracking on your side (and tighter procedures and staff training), missed fees will be a thing of the past.

Ready to protect your recruitment revenue without damaging client relationships? Learn more here

bobcheck - Automated Fee Protection & Candidate Tracking for Recruitment Agencies
Trusted by 25% of Recruiter's Top 100 Agencies

With bobcheck's automated fee tracking, recruitment agencies get real-time alerts when a back-door hire is discovered.

Now, this is important. When a bob is identified quickly through our candidate tracking software, it puts you in a much stronger position to reach out to the client and discuss ways to recover that missed fee. Whether the fee is repaid fully, or another arrangement is made, such as exclusivity on future roles, comes down to the relationship between your business and your client.

Whichever resolution you settle on, with bobcheck's quick and simple identification process through ATS integration, you'll be in a much stronger position to negotiate and discuss with your client, finding a mutually beneficial resolution.

Real-Time ATS Integration for Immediate Fee Protection

We have an excellent API integration into Bullhorn and JobAdder that live tracks data and flags instantly when we detect a back-door hire event has happened.

Without bobcheck's automated candidate tracking, months could pass by since that initial back-door hire occurred – meaning your client relationship may have changed significantly. This means the opportunity to discuss compensating missed fees may have closed. And that's when recruitment agencies find themselves heading down the unrewarding path to debt collection…

Are you looking for more tips and ideas to protect your recruitment revenue? Download the bobcheck Revenue Protection Guide for practical advice and strategies to enhance your fee protection procedures.

Prevention and Understanding: The bobcheck Advantage

bobcheck can undoubtedly put you in a strong position to negotiate with clients and recover lost earnings in some shape or form.

But beyond fee recovery, our customers are really seeing value in using our software as a training and prevention tool too. bobcheck provides insights to help you understand why a back-door hire has occurred in the first place.

Learn From Every Missed Fee

Once the tool alerts you to a back-door hire, you can begin investigating the event. Did a team member leave and nobody was in place to follow up? Were incorrect terms attached with the job (or, worse, not included at all)?

Once you understand these patterns, you can then put measures in place to prevent future missed fees from happening again. See, in an ideal world, bobcheck wouldn't pick up on any missed fees – because your recruitment processes would be so tight, a back-door hire wouldn't happen! Now, of course, this isn't realistic. But with the learnings and insights bobcheck can deliver, you should be able to improve your processes, retrain your people and prevent future bobs.

Mind you, it's still worth keeping bobcheck parsing your data every month – just in case a back-door hire slips through the net. Think of it as your fee protection insurance policy!

Why Recruitment Agencies Choose bobcheck Over Debt Recovery

Client Relationship Protection
Your client relationships are your most valuable asset. Instead of sending a debt recovery firm their way, bobcheck empowers you to open up a conversation and find a mutually beneficial resolution.

Cost-Effective Fee Protection
Pay a flat monthly subscription instead of 25-40% commission on every recovered fee.

Proactive, Not Reactive
Identify missed fees within days, not months, when you still have relationship capital to negotiate.

Continuous Improvement
Learn from every back-door hire to strengthen your recruitment processes and prevent future fee loss.

ATS Integration
Seamless integration with Bullhorn, JobAdder, and Vincere (coming soon) means automatic candidate tracking without manual work

Robert Walters Chooses bobcheck for Automated Fee Protection

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:39:49 GMT

0900, 21st February 2024

London, UK

David joins Goliath to protect their revenue

It has always been our mission and purpose to protect the revenue of our recruitment agency clients. One of our goals was to get one of the largest agencies in the world using out product. On bobcheck's second birthday, we are announcing that Robert Walters and Resource Solutions has selected bobcheck to deliver an innovation trial within the business.

What does this mean?
EMEA, Americas and ANZ will use the platform to identify opportunities to re engage with their clients if a candidate has joined their business without paying a fee. There are many reasons why this might happen, but the indirect benefit is Learning and Development

For Media and Press enquiries please contact Sam Brennan at sam@bobcheck.io

What is bobcheck? Automated Fee Tracking for Recruitment Agencies

wow@shazamme.com (Default Author) — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 21:31:14 GMT

Are You Losing Thousands in Missed Recruitment Fees?

We've already identified £1.5m in missed fees for our clients in just two years.

If you're able to keep tabs on every CV sent, you may have a rough idea of your losses. We know, however, that many recruitment agencies simply don't have the time or tools to track this data effectively. It's a big problem. With as many as 1 in 2000 CVs sent resulting in a back-door hire, agencies need automated candidate tracking software to identify missed fees and, crucially, recover that loss.

Luckily, here at bobcheck we've hit upon a solution.

What is bobcheck? Your Automated Recruitment Fee Protection Tool

bobcheck is an automated platform that enables recruitment agencies to track and identify if they have missed any placement fees through back-door hires.

There's no limit to the number of candidates you wish to track using our candidate tracking software, and we can process 10,000 candidates in under ten minutes.

For you, this means saying goodbye to time-consuming manual tracking – and to missed recruitment fees.

Why 'bob'?

You're probably familiar with the term 'behind our back' or 'bob'. It's recruitment industry terminology used to highlight the process of having a candidate go directly to a client without a fee being paid. It's not an unusual occurrence for recruitment businesses; many of us probably see it as an occupational hazard that we all just have to deal with. But that doesn't mean it's harmless.

Did you know?

In just two years, we've already identified £1.5m in missed fees for our clients.

Now imagine losses on that scale across the entire recruitment sector. This is why we created bobcheck – the only automated fee-checking tool designed uniquely for recruitment businesses.

Why Do Back-Door Hires Happen?

Understanding how candidates bypass recruitment agencies is crucial to preventing fee loss. There are a few reasons why back-door hires occur, but it's usually down to one of these two scenarios:

1) Client reconnection after CV submission

The client has reconnected with the candidate some time after CV submission. Alternatively, the candidate has reached out to the client themselves (this is less typical, but we've seen it happen). Either way, the candidate decides to join – but your agency has not been informed by either party.

2) Recruiter departure without proper handover

A recruiter has left your agency and the candidate has since been placed... But nobody has followed up on the placement.

In both these examples, you might only discover the back-door hire if you're proactively keeping tabs on all your sent CVs and candidates.

If you're not doing this (and, let's be honest, very few agencies have the time to do so regularly), there's a very good chance you'll never even find out about missed placements – let alone have the time and resource to start recovering the missed fee.

With bobcheck's automated fee tracking on your side, it's a different story. You'll get bi-weekly tracking and alerts, so you'll be notified of back-door hires quickly and effortlessly.

So, whether someone hasn't followed up, a recruiter's left your team, or a back-door hire has happened, you'll know all about it – and you'll be in a strong position to recover that missed recruitment fee.

bobcheck in Numbers: The Scale of Manual Candidate Tracking

Let's say you have a 50-recruiter agency business, with each of those recruiters sending about 5 candidates a week. With those kinds of numbers, by the end of the year you'd have representation on around 13,000 candidates.

How do you keep track, every month, of those 13,000 candidates that have been sent to your clients?

The simple answer is you don't – at least not manually. bobcheck has been built by recruiters for recruiters, so we really get the pressures on your time. There's always something more urgent for you to be doing, which means that updating spreadsheets or manually combing through past CVs and candidates often needs to take a back seat.

Again, this is where automated candidate tracking comes in. By automating the fee tracking process, bobcheck can save you hours (if not days!) of time each month – time you can reinvest in placements and client relationships.

How Does bobcheck's ATS Integration Work?

bobcheck integrates seamlessly with several leading Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), making automated fee tracking effortless.

We have an API connection to:

Bullhorn
JobAdder
Vincere

This ATS integration enables you to automatically track your CV sends and candidate interviews without manual data entry.

Pro Tip for New Users:

When you take the API licence for monthly candidate tracking, you also get the chance to load 24 months' worth of historical data FOR FREE. This means bobcheck can get to work checking for historical missed fees from day one – potentially uncovering thousands in recoverable revenue immediately.

No ATS? No Problem.

Alternatively, you can upload a .CSV file if you're not using one of our ATS partners (or an ATS at all).

bobcheck operates a simple subscription model – and we don't take a penny from your missed fees. Your recovered revenue is 100% yours.

Frequently Asked Questions About Recruitment Fee Protection

How quickly can bobcheck identify a missed fee? Our bi-weekly tracking system alerts you to potential back-door hires within days of them occurring, giving you the best chance of fee recovery.

What's the typical ROI for recruitment agencies? Most agencies recover their bobcheck subscription cost within the first missed fee identified – often in the first month.

Can bobcheck track historical placements? Yes! New API subscribers can load 24 months of historical candidate data for free, uncovering missed fees that may have occurred before you started using our service.

How many candidates can I track? There's no limit. We can process 10,000 candidates in under ten minutes.

Start Recovering Your Missed Recruitment Fees Today

If you're drowning in data and can't keep track of your missed fees, you need bobcheck's automated fee tracking in your agency technology stack.

Almost a quarter of Recruiter's Top 100 Agencies use bobcheck, so you'd be in good company. As the only automated fee-checking tool designed uniquely for recruitment businesses, bobcheck is a must-have tool in your arsenal.

Ready to stop losing money on back-door hires?

Calculate how much you could be losing: With just 50 recruiters sending 5 CVs per week, you could be missing out on significant placement fees. Don't let another month go by without recruitment fee protection.

David Clark
Founder

bobcheck

- Automated Candidate Tracking & Fee Protection for Recruitment Agencies