1.  How is R.W. Stearns different from an employment agency?
Our services are designed to complement your strengths.  We provide the candidates and let you focus on recruiting, interviewing and hiring.  This is an extremely cost-effective method of finding qualified candidates for your positions.  While an employment agency operates on a contingency basis, getting paid if/when you make the hire, our compensation is based on the material we provide you.  On average cost per hire is approximately $5,000 - much lower than the typical agency fee of $15,000.

2.  What type of positions do you specialize in?
Our services cover job families within all industries.  Whether your hiring needs are in product development, manufacturing, test, product marketing, sales, customer service/field support or upper management, our research capabilities are unparalleled. This includes all levels from the highest level of management to individual contributor roles.

3. What kind of guarantees do you have?
We guarantee the accuracy of our research.  While we cannot guarantee that you will get a hire (the recruiting is up to you!), we will provide you with contact information and profiles of people who possess the expertise you require.

4. Do you have a minimum fee?
We accept only those projects that we feel have a good chance of resulting in a hire for our clients.  One important component of this process is providing our clients with enough candidates to work with.  Accordingly, our average project consists of fifty candidates provided to our clients.  Frequently, we can provide a solution from our database of past research results. Please contact us for pricing information.

5. On average, how many candidates do I need to get a hire?
This depends upon many factors, including the attractiveness of the company where the candidate currently works, the appeal of the new position offered by our clients, etc. Since our founding in 1984 we have seen that approximately fifty candidates need to be provided to our clients in order to achieve one hire.  This number may seem high, but since our research process focuses on identifying people who are actively using the skills you seek, some of them may not be interested in leaving their current position.  Our goal is for our clients to have ten to fifteen interested and qualified candidates per position with whom to do final interviewing.

6.  What is your fee structure?
Our fees are based solely on the product we deliver.  We do not charge 'setup' fees, nor do we bill by the hour.  The cost of each project is quoted in our proposals and is based on a combination of complexity and the number of candidates we identify.   Please contact us for pricing information.

6.  How long does a project take to complete?
The answer depends on which type of service we are performing for you.  Custom research requires approximately ten working days, depending on the complexity of the search.  Profiling services will typically begin yielding a steady stream of candidates after a few days.  Database solutions have the quickest turnaround time - usually about two or three days.

7. How do I set up an appointment / meeting?
Simply get in touch with us via phone or email to make arrangements.  If desired, we can come to your office to review your hiring needs and discuss your requirements.  We would also be happy to present an overview of our services.

8.  Can multiple services be contracted at once?
Yes.  We may for instance provide Custom Research followed by Profiling Services on the names you feel are most promising from the research.

9.  How do you handle Billing?
Billing is done on a standard net-30 basis.  We send invoices at the completion of a research project. Profiling services are billed weekly as profiles are completed.

10.  How do you deliver the completed research and candidate profiles to your clients?
Usually we send our profiles via e-mail and hard copy (normal mail).  However you may wish instead to have your material faxed.  There are two types of attachments: Microsoft Word documents and database documents.  Microsoft Word documents are the usual product of Custom Research and can be opened by most Windows or Macintosh-based word processors.  Database documents are comma/tab delimited ASCII files which you may import into your own database or any spreadsheet program (such as Microsoft Excel).