Two agencies can promise the same outcome: a hired engineer. Both may charge a placement fee and describe candidates as technically vetted. Those labels do not tell you how much assessment work your engineering team will still need to do.
Evaluate a technical recruitment agency by what happens before the introduction, what evidence reaches your team and how the introduced candidates perform in your own process. A shortlist is an intermediate deliverable. The hiring outcome and the engineering effort required to reach it are what matter.
Start with the work your team repeats
Before comparing providers, look at recent interviews. Where did your engineers discover gaps that could reasonably have been identified earlier? Separate missing fundamentals from company-specific questions. A candidate who cannot explain a required backend concept is a different case from a capable engineer who prefers a different working environment.
Write down three categories: requirements to assess before introduction, questions your team must own and preferences that are useful but optional. Share those categories with every agency you evaluate. Otherwise, each provider may be using a different definition of qualified.
Ask to see an assessment report
Request an anonymized example and a walkthrough. A score alone leaves important questions unanswered. You need to understand the task, the answer, the follow-up and the reasoning behind the recommendation.
| Ask the agency | What the answer should clarify |
|---|---|
| What is assessed for this role? | Which requirements are covered and which remain for your team |
| Who reviews the assessment? | Who checks the evidence and owns the recommendation |
| What happens after an incomplete answer? | Whether the assessor probes understanding or simply moves on |
| What reaches our hiring manager? | Answer-level evidence, gaps and recommended follow-ups |
| How are integrity concerns handled? | How signals are investigated and candidates can clarify them |
| What happens after introduction? | Interview coordination, feedback, offer support and ownership |
There is no need to assume every other agency merely forwards CVs. Some offer substantial technical assessment. Compare the actual scope and evidence for your vacancy.
Measure client technical-stage pass rate
Choose the client stage you want to measure before launching the search. For example: the first technical interview run by your engineering team after agency introduction.
Technical-stage pass rate = candidates who pass that defined stage divided by candidates who complete it.
Report the counts alongside the percentage. Six passes out of eight completed interviews is easier to interpret than a standalone 75%. Track invited candidates, withdrawals, no-shows and pending results separately. Do not count a candidate as a technical failure because they accepted another offer before the interview.
That example is illustrative, not a Recruo performance claim. For a small search, inspect individual rejection reasons as well as the rate. A missing core skill and a changed hiring requirement call for different corrections.
Count engineering hours per hire
Include preparation, interviews, assessment review and debriefs. Count people, not just calendar slots: a one-hour interview attended by two engineers consumes two engineering hours.
Engineering hours per hire = engineering time spent on the defined search cohort divided by hires from that cohort who start.
Use a completed cohort or clearly label an ongoing search. If nobody has started, report hours spent and current funnel status; hours per hire is not yet a meaningful result. Include time spent reviewing agency reports so you do not hide effort that moved elsewhere.
Compare roles of similar seniority and difficulty. A higher pass rate can coexist with a search that moves too slowly, so also track time to relevant introductions, offer acceptance and starts. No single number describes the entire service.
Agree the boundary before paying
The agency should name the assessment stages it owns and the stages your team retains. Your engineering leaders still need to judge your architecture, working constraints and expectations. The purpose of earlier assessment is to make those conversations more useful.
At Recruo, Standard includes sourcing and the technical and soft-skill assessments agreed for your role before introductions. Your team receives evidence, runs its own interviews and makes the hiring decision. We support the process through to hire. The total fee is 18% of first-year salary, with $2,000 paid at launch and credited toward that total; the remaining balance is due when the hire starts. See the full search and guarantee terms.
For your first search, agree the scorecard, reporting definitions and feedback loop together. You should be able to answer a practical question after the first few introductions: are our engineers meeting people who are better prepared for the requirements we agreed?
See what a useful assessment handoff contains and how Recruo runs the hiring process.