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One Role.
One Flat Fee.
No Percentages.
Full-cycle recruiting for one-off or urgent hires.
Chemistry First methodology.
Flat fees from £5,500.
Industry-leading one-year full guarantee.
From £5,500 per placement
When Project-Based Makes Sense
Not every company needs ongoing recruiting support.
Sometimes you just need one hire – done right.
Project-based hiring is perfect when:
You have an urgent role to fill
You're not ready for retainer commitment
You need a specialist role
You want to test working with us
The Process
Flat Fees, No Surprises
Traditional agencies charge 20-25% of first-year salary. For a £60K hire, that’s £12,000-£15,000.
We charge flat fees because we believe you’re paying for our work – not a percentage of someone’s salary.
Role Type | Flat Fee (+VAT) |
|---|---|
Retainer Clients pay a fixed fee from £3500 plus a monthly retainer | £3,500 |
Standard Roles can include: (Sales, Customer Success, Business Development, Marketing – Paid Social, Organic, Digital Marketing, Growth Marketing), Operations) | £5,500 – £8,000 |
Technical Roles can include: (Software Engineer, Robotics Engineer, AI/ML Engineer, Firmware Engineer, Mechatronics, Mechanical and/or Electronics Engineering, Product Manager) | £8,000 – £12,000 |
Senior roles can include: VP, Specialist, Lead and Head of roles | £10,000 – £15,000 |
All placements include:
- Industry leading one-year full replacement guarantee (if full fee is agreed – we can pro-rate the guarantee if we agree a one-off lower fee)
- Full-cycle support (sourcing through onboarding)
- Chemistry First interview and hiring methodology
- 30/60/90 day check-ins
Payment terms: £500 upon engagement, £1200 upon you interviewing, remainder upon successful hire’s start date (+VAT)
Why Not Just Use An Agency?
| Traditional Recruitment Agency | HFBAC Project Hiring Service | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost (£60K role) | £12,000-£15,000 | £5,500-£8,000 |
| Methodology | CV matching | Chemistry First |
| Understanding of you | Your website and a call | Deep discovery session and team discussion plus survey, if applicable |
| Post-hire support | None (they’re gone one their invoice is paid) | Monthly check-ins |
| Incentive | Speed (they get paid faster) | Fit and enabling your growth (we’re motivated by your success plus you may tell others about us) |
Hiring More Than One Role?
If you’re planning to hire 2+ people in the next 12 months, our retainer options may be more cost-effective – and you’ll get ongoing strategic support between hires.
Common Questions
What's the typical timeline?
The honest answer: it depends. Most searches run 4-8 weeks from kickoff to offer accepted, but timelines vary significantly based on the role, your location, and how attractive you are to candidates.
The factors that affect your timeline:
Role complexity matters: A marketing coordinator in a major city? 4-5 weeks is realistic. A senior product manager with specific SaaS experience? 6-8 weeks. A Head of Engineering who needs to build a team from scratch? 8-12 weeks. The more senior or specialist the role, the smaller the candidate pool and the longer the search.
Location matters: Hiring in London UK, Manchester UK, Austin TX, Bay Area CA, Long Island City NYC or Bristol UK gives you access to large talent pools. Hiring in a smaller town or requiring office presence in a less connected location extends the timeline – sometimes significantly.
Remote roles open up the market but bring their own screening considerations.
Your employer brand matters – perhaps most of all: This is the factor most founders underestimate.
Do candidates actually want to work for you? Is your careers page compelling?
Are your Glassdoor reviews decent?
Is your interview process respectful of people’s time?
Companies with strong employer brands fill roles faster because candidates say yes. Companies with weak or unknown brands need more time to attract and convince the right people.
I’ll give you honest feedback on this in our discovery call. If your employer brand needs work, we can address it – but I won’t pretend it doesn’t affect timelines.
Here’s how a typical search breaks down:
Week 1: Discovery and Strategy We have our discovery call, I get deep into understanding the role, your team, and what “success” actually looks like. I build the search strategy and start sourcing immediately.
Weeks 2-4: Search and Screening This is where Chemistry First does the heavy lifting. I’m not just finding people with the right keywords on their CV – I’m screening for team compatibility, working style, and whether they’ll actually thrive in your specific environment. You’ll start seeing shortlisted candidates from week 2 onwards.
Weeks 4-6: Interviews and Selection I coordinate interviews, provide frameworks and questions, and debrief with you after each stage. We move as fast as your diary allows – this phase often depends on your availability as much as candidate flow.
Weeks 6-8: Offer and Close Reference checks, offer negotiation, and getting to “yes.” I stay involved through the entire process – candidates don’t just receive an offer letter and get left to figure things out.
For urgent roles: I can compress this timeline when needed and if our team has the capacity. If someone’s just handed in their notice and you need a replacement fast, we can sometimes move to the offer stage within 3-4 weeks for straightforward roles.
For senior or specialist roles: Budget for 8-12 weeks. I’d rather set realistic expectations than promise 4 weeks and disappoint you.
For finance roles specifically: These take longer – typically 3-6 months. Finance candidates are risk-averse by nature, often on longer notice periods (sometimes 3 months), and the compliance and reference requirements are more extensive. If you’re hiring a Finance Director or CFO, don’t expect a quick turnaround.
What I’ll give you in our discovery call:
An honest timeline estimate based on your specific role, location, and employer brand. I’d rather tell you the truth upfront than overpromise and underdeliver.
If you need someone faster than is realistic, I’ll tell you – and we can discuss whether adjusting the role requirements or compensation might speed things up.
Do you work with remote teams?
Absolutely – and this is increasingly where our transatlantic background becomes valuable.
We’ve helped teams hire remotely across the UK, throughout Europe, and into the US. Whether you’re a fully distributed team, hybrid, or office-based but open to remote for the right candidate, we adapt the search and screening accordingly.
What remote hiring requires that we bring:
Remote roles need even sharper chemistry assessment.
When someone isn’t sitting in your office every day, you need to be confident they can communicate asynchronously, stay motivated without supervision, and build relationships through screens. These are testable qualities – and we screen for them specifically.
We also understand the practical considerations: time zone overlaps that actually work, compensation expectations across different markets, and how to position remote roles attractively to candidates who have plenty of options.
Our own setup:
We work remotely with clients across the UK and US daily. Helen, our founder, is in the US at least once a quarter – maintaining relationships, staying current with the American market, and meeting clients and candidates face-to-face. We understand distributed work because we live it.
If you’re hiring for a remote role, we’ll discuss during discovery what ‘remote’ actually means for you – fully async? Occasional travel? Specific time zone requirements? – and we’ll tailor the search accordingly.
What if the hire doesn't work out?
This is where we take on the risk so you don’t have to.
Our guarantee: 12 months. A full year. Industry-leading.
If any hire we place doesn’t work out within 365 days 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.
Let me put that in perspective:
The industry standard guarantee is 90 days. Some agencies offer 6 months and act like they’re doing you a favour. We offer a full year because we believe in Chemistry First. When you test for team compatibility before credentials, hires stick.
Why this should matter to you:
A bad hire is devastatingly expensive. A £50K employee who doesn’t work out costs you roughly £150,000-£200,000 when you factor in recruitment fees, onboarding time, lost productivity, management distraction, team disruption, and starting the search again. Research consistently shows bad hires cost 3-4x annual salary.
With project-based hiring, you’re typically making a one-off decision without an ongoing relationship. That’s exactly when you need the strongest guarantee. If something goes wrong in month 8 or month 11, you’re protected. We find the replacement. You don’t pay another placement fee.
The bottom line: We’re confident enough in our methodology to back every single placement for a full year. If we weren’t delivering hires that last, this guarantee would bankrupt us. It doesn’t – because Chemistry First works.
Do you offer payment plans?
Yes – we structure payments to align our incentives with yours and to make quality hiring accessible.
Our standard payment structure:
| Hiring Stage | Staged Payment | At what stage of the process… |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement fee | £500 | Upon signing – confirms commitment from both sides |
| Interview milestone | £1,200 | When you interview your first shortlisted candidate |
| Completion | Remainder | Upon your new hire’s start date |
Why we structure it this way:
The majority of the fee isn’t due until someone actually starts. This means we’re both invested in finding the right person, not just filling the role quickly. You’re not paying thousands upfront and hoping for the best.
For multiple roles or larger projects:
If you’re hiring 2-3 people through project-based work, we can discuss milestone-based payments or adjusted structures. I’m flexible – the goal is to make this work for your cash flow while ensuring we’re both committed to the outcome.
Compare this to traditional agencies:
Most agencies want 50% upfront or full payment on offer acceptance – before you even know if the person will show up on day one. Our structure means you’re paying for results, not promises.
If cash flow is a genuine constraint, let’s talk about it in the discovery call. I’d rather find a structure that works than have budget be the reason you make a bad hire doing it yourself.
What industries do you work with?
We work with founder-led and entrepreneurial businesses across a range of sectors.
Chemistry First isn’t industry-specific – it’s about how people work together, which matters everywhere.
The common thread isn’t industry – it’s how you treat people.
Every client we work with, regardless of sector, shares one characteristic: they genuinely care about their employees. They want to build teams where people thrive, not just fill seats. They understand that treating staff well isn’t just nice – it’s how you attract and retain the best people.
If you see employees as interchangeable resources to be optimised, we’re probably not a good fit. If you believe great companies are built by great teams who are looked after properly, we’ll work well together.
Where we have deepest experience:
- B2B SaaS and tech-enabled services – from seed stage to scaling
- Robotics and deep tech – where technical excellence and team dynamics both matter
- Fintech and financial services – regulated environments with high stakes hiring
- Marketing, creative, and PR agencies – where team chemistry is everything and client relationships depend on your people
- Marketplaces and platforms – the unique chaos of two-sided businesses
- Consultancies and professional services firms – where every hire is client-facing
- Accountancy practices – but only the entrepreneurial ones building something different, not traditional partnerships stuck in the 1990s
What pulls all of these together:
They’re founder-led or entrepreneurial.
The people we work with aren’t corporate HR departments with rigid processes – they’re business owners who genuinely care about building great teams.
They treat candidates with respect.
They invest in their people once hired.
They understand that your reputation as an employer travels fast.
Candidates talk to each other. They check Glassdoor. They ask around. Companies that treat people well attract better candidates and keep them longer.
This isn’t soft idealism – it’s how you win in a competitive talent market.
Industries where we’re probably not your best fit:
If you’re hiring for highly specialised technical roles in deep science, pharma R&D, or engineering disciplines where we don’t have networks, we’ll tell you upfront.
We’d rather point you to someone better suited than take your money and deliver a mediocre search.
Similarly, if you’re a company with high turnover because you burn through people, Chemistry First won’t fix that. The methodology finds people who’ll thrive in your environment – but if your environment is the problem, we need to address that first.
The real question:
Do you treat your people well? Do you believe team chemistry matters as much as credentials? Are you building something you’re proud of?
If yes, we’ll likely work well together regardless of your specific sector.
Ready to Fill Your Role?
Book a free discovery call. We’ll discuss the role, your team, and whether project-based hiring is the right approach.
No obligation. Just a conversation about finding the right person.
Or email directly: helen@hfbac.com
