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Your Fractional Talent Partner
Growing companies face impossible choices
Agencies
DIY
Founder and business owner time that should be spent on product and customers. Expensive mistakes.
Full-time Hire
Under-utilised half the time, overwhelmed the other half. Expensive overhead.
There's a better way
A Fractional Talent Partner embeds into your business – experienced, strategic recruiting support that scales with your needs.
You get the expertise of a seasoned Head of Talent without the full-time cost. I learn your culture, build relationships with your hiring managers, and become part of your team.
Scale up during growth sprints. Scale down when things slow. Predictable monthly costs you can actually budget.
And you get a robust expert hiring team behind your Fractional Talent Partner. Both human recruitment experts as well as AI-optimised processes and workflows for non-human decision making parts of the process. Value and expertise all the way!
Human-First, AI-Optimised
AI Handles
- Sourcing candidates faster and more comprehensively
- Marketing mapping and talent pool identification
- Salary benchmarking across markets
- Pipeline management and tracking
- Bias detection in job descriptions
Humans Handle
- Chemistry testing and culture fit assessment
- Candidate experience and relationship building
- Nuanced judgment on startup readiness
- Navigating founder politics and dynamics
- Reference checks that reveal real insights
What's Included
Strategy & Planning
- Quarterly hiring roadmap aligned with business goals
- Role prioritisation and budget planning
- Competitor talent landscape analysis
- Leadership alignment on hiring priorities
Full-Cycle Recruiting
Full-Cycle Recruiting (AI-Optimised)
- Job description writing and optimisation
- Candidate sourcing and first-round screening
- Interview coordination and support
- Offer negotiation and reference checking
Employer Branding
- Candidate experience audit (CandEx) and improvement strategy
- Interview process design
- Careers page recommendations
- Glassdoor/employer review strategy
Ongoing Support
- Weekly check-ins with hiring managers and leadership
- Monthly hiring metrics and reporting
- Slack and email access between calls
- Ad-hoc advice on people challenges with intros to HR experts
Pricing
£2,000 /month
Per Placement: £2,500
£4,000 /month
Per Placement: £2,000
£6,500 /month
Per Placement: £1,200
$2,500 /month
$5,000 /month
$8,000 /month
Minimum commitment: 3 months | Guarantee: Industry-Leading 12 Month Free Replacement
Not quite ready for full Fractional?
£1,500/month ($1,875)
£3,500 per hire ($4,375)
Ideal for: Teams of 2 to 20 people, revenue £250k to £2m
What's Included in Starter Retainer
- Monthly 60-minute strategy call (hiring roadmap, team structure, compensation benchmarking)
- Priority access for urgent roles (front of queue)
- 2 hours/month ad-hoc support (Slack/email access)
- Job description review and optimisation
- Interview process consultation
The bridge to Fractional: Many Starter Retainer clients grow into full Fractional partnerships as their hiring needs increase. It’s a natural progression.
Is This Right For You?
Fraction Talent Partnerships work well for:
- SMBs with 15-100 employees
- Revenue £500k-£10m (or $600k-$12m)
- Planning to hire 5-15 people in the next 12 months
- No internal talent function (or junior HR needing support)
- Growing too fast for DIY, but not big enough for full-time recruiter
- Companies who value chemistry and culture fit
We are not for you if:
- You need high-volume hiring (50+ roles/year) - you need a full internal team
- You want the cheapest option - we're affordable, not cheap
- You're happy with 'CV shufflers' - we do things differently
What Makes HFBAC Different
UK and USA Expertise
British-American dual citizen.
Lived in both Chicago and New Jersey.
Recruiting for UK and US companies since 2001.
I genuinely understand both markets – not as an outsider looking in.
BBC
Origins
Started my career as a voiceover artist in London and became the BBC’s first female football commentator.
Those years in the press box taught me to read team dynamics, spot who works well together, and notice when the chemistry isn’t there.
Chemistry First Methodology
I test for team chemistry before credentials.
A brilliant engineer who clashes with your team will cost you more than a good engineer who elevates everyone around them.
Culture fit first, skills second.
CandEx Focus
Candidate experience (CandEx) is central to everything HFBAC does.
Your hiring process is marketing.
Every touchpoint shapes your employer brand – even with candidates you reject or don’t join you today. They may be the advocates you need or join you in the future.
How It Works
What Clients Say
Tom
Agency 30+ Staff, London
Monika Jercha
Shadow Robot
Louis Flinn
Engineer
About Helen Sanders
Helen Sanders is the founder of HFBAC and creator of the Chemistry First methodology.
She began her career as a freelance sports presenter and journalist at the BBC, becoming the BBC’s first female football commentator in the 1990s. Those years in the press box – watching teams succeed or fail based on chemistry, not just individual talent – shaped her entire approach to recruitment.
Since 1998, Helen has been recruiting for tech companies and SMBs across the UK and US, including time spent in New Jersey and Chicago as well as clients in New York. As a British-American dual citizen, she brings genuine understanding of both markets.
Over 25+ years, Helen has helped 400+ founders build teams through workshops at British Library BIPC and Virgin Start Up, and through direct recruitment services. In January 2025, she sold her previous agency, Your People Partners, to create HFBAC with a fresh approach.
Based in Bristol, England. Works with clients across the UK and US.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from using a recruitment agency?
The difference is fundamental – it’s the gap between a partner invested in your success and a vendor incentivised to move on to the next deal.
Traditional agencies work like this: They charge 15-25% of first-year salary (£12,000-£18,000 for a £60K hire), they’re paid on placement, so speed matters more than fit. They’ll work with you for a few weeks, fill the role, collect their fee, and disappear. If that hire leaves eight months later? They’ve long since moved on to other clients.
A Fractional Talent Partner works like this: I embed into your business. I attend your team meetings. I understand your culture, your growth plans, your founder dynamics. I’m on a monthly retainer, which means I’m incentivised to find the right person, not just a fast placement. When something isn’t working, I’m still there – helping you understand what went wrong and finding the right solution.
The real difference shows up in the hard moments. When you’re torn between two candidates. When a hire isn’t settling in as expected. When your growth plans change and you need to pivot your hiring strategy. An agency isn’t there for those conversations. Your Fractional Talent Partner is.
Think of it this way: an agency fills roles. A Fractional Talent Partner builds your team.
Can you help us hire in the US if you're based in the UK?
This is actually where Helen’s background (founder of HFBAC) becomes a genuine competitive advantage – not just “we can work across time zones,” but real, lived experience in both markets.
Here’s what I bring:
Helen is a British-American dual citizen. She’s lived and worked in New Jersey and Chicago.
HFBAC has active clients in New York, California, and Austin.
Helen has been recruiting for US companies since 1998 and moved to Chicago in 2001 to open a new recruitment office – that’s over 25 years of understanding how American businesses hire, what candidates expect, and how the market differs from the UK.
We’ve also helped multiple UK companies successfully build US teams from scratch.
HFBAC understands the nuances: how compensation expectations differ, how interview processes need to adapt, how to position a UK company attractively to American candidates, and how to navigate the cultural differences that trip up companies expanding across the Atlantic.
This isn’t “we have a US partner” or “we can search LinkedIn globally.”
This is genuine dual-market expertise from someone who has lived it, built relationships in both countries, and understands the subtleties that make or break transatlantic hiring.
Whether you’re a UK company expanding to the US, a US company building a UK team, or a transatlantic business hiring across both markets – Helen operates natively in both worlds.
What's the minimum commitment?
Three months – and here’s why that actually protects you.
Building a genuine partnership takes time. In the first month, I’m learning your business: your culture, your team dynamics, how your founders work together, what’s really driving your growth. In months two and three, that understanding translates into better candidates, sharper screening, and hires who actually fit.
Recruiters who promise results in two weeks are optimising for speed, not quality.
They’ll send you CVs that match keywords without understanding whether those people will thrive in your specific environment.
The three-month minimum ensures I have time to do this properly. It’s also long enough for you to see results and judge whether the partnership is working.
After the initial three months, we move to month-to-month with 60 days’ notice.
No lock-in, no penalty.
If it’s not working, you can walk away.
Most clients stay much longer – typically 12-18 months or more – because by then, the relationship is delivering real value.
The minimum commitment is designed to give the partnership the best chance of success. It’s not about locking you in; it’s about doing the job properly.
What if a hire doesn't work out?
Let me be direct: this is where we take on the risk so you don’t have to.
Our guarantee: 365 days. A full year.
If any person we place with you doesn’t work out within 12 months of their start date – for any reason – we’ll find you a replacement at no additional placement fee. You only pay £300 + VAT to cover re-advertising costs.
Why this matters:
The industry standard guarantee is 12 weeks max. Few agencies offer 6 months.
We offer a full year because we stand behind the Chemistry First methodology. When you test for team compatibility before credentials, hires stick.
We’re confident enough in our process to back it with a guarantee that would terrify most recruiters.
Think about what this means for your risk:
A bad hire at £50k salary costs you roughly £100,000, or even up to £200,000 when you factor in recruitment costs, onboarding, lost productivity, management time, and rehiring. That’s not a typo – research consistently shows bad hires cost 3-4x their annual salary.
With our 365-day guarantee, if something goes wrong in month 8, month 10, or month 11, you’re protected. We find the replacement. You don’t pay another placement fee.
The risk sits with us, not you.
If you’re no longer on retainer when the replacement is needed:
We still honour the guarantee. We just ask for a contribution of £500+VAT towards re-establishing the project and optimising the new search. That’s it.
The bottom line: We’re so confident in Chemistry First that we’ll back every placement for a full year.
No other recruiter offers this because most can’t afford to – their methodology doesn’t produce hires that last. Ours does.
Ready to talk?
Or email directly: helen@hfbac.com
