| Recruitment agency | ChatGPT / DIY automation | Internal talent team | Referment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you pay | 15–25% of salary per hire (£15–30k each) | $20/mo for the LLM, plus your time wiring and supervising it | £50–100k+ salary, NI, pension, desk, tooling | From £695/mo flat. No per-hire fees. |
| Time to first shortlist | 1–2 weeks | Hours of prompt-engineering before first usable output | 1 week (after they’re hired and ramped) | Days |
| Who reads the CVs | An agency recruiter, often one of many on your account | You, after a model summary that may hallucinate | Your in-house recruiter | AI reads in full, scored against your brief, with a real recruiter overseeing |
| Sourcing reach | Their network, biased to who they can place fastest | Whatever you can scrape | Their LinkedIn network plus your job board credits | Job boards + LinkedIn + multi-channel outreach, run in parallel on every role |
| Working hours | Mon–Fri, office hours | When you have time to babysit it | Mon–Fri, office hours | 7 days a week, around the clock |
| Reply & chase handling | Yes, but slows when you’re not the highest-fee role | You, manually | Yes | Yes, including silent-treatment chase and polite let-downs |
| Lock-in | Per-role contract, often with a rebate clause | None, but you own all the risk | Permanent hire, employment law applies | Month-to-month. No notice period. |
| Per-hire commission | Yes, the entire incentive is to close, not fit | No | No (other than salary OTE in some setups) | Never. Ever. |
Pick the right tool for the job.
No single approach wins everything. Here’s where each one earns its keep, and where Referment doesn’t fit.
Use an agency when…
You need one specific senior hire, fast, and the candidate market is so narrow that a known recruiter’s rolodex is the only way to reach it. Pay the placement fee, accept the contract, move on.
Use ChatGPT / DIY when…
You enjoy the engineering, your hiring volume is one role every couple of years, and the cost of a missed candidate is something you can absorb personally. The savings are real if your time is free.
Hire an in-house recruiter when…
You’re hiring more than ~30 people a year, every year, and the role mix is repeatable. The salary makes sense at that scale, and they’ll know your business in a way no external partner can.
Use Referment when…
You hire a few to a few dozen people a year, you don’t want to pay 5-figure placement fees on each one, and you’d rather spend your time on the people decisions than the operational work that gets you to them.
See if it’s the right fit.
Brief us a real role today. 30 days free, no card, no commission. Cancel any time.