Answers
How does No Cure, No Pay hiring work?
No Cure, No Pay means a company pays a recruitment fee only when a hire is placed: no retainer, no charge for the search itself. The Quantum Club adds a guarantee set out in your agreement: if a hire leaves within the agreed period, we run a free replacement search or credit the fee against your next placement.
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The model in plain terms
You define the role; the recruiter runs the search at their own risk. You pay a placement fee only when a candidate you chose signs, never for the search itself. This flips the traditional retained model, where fees are billed whether or not a hire lands. At The Quantum Club the standard success fee is 25% of first-year salary, with nothing upfront; partner rates are agreed per engagement.
The guarantee
Every placement is backed by a guarantee laid down in your agreement: if a hire leaves within the agreed period, we run a replacement search at no cost or credit the fee against your next placement. The search itself is at the club's risk, which is only sustainable when the shortlist is genuinely pre-qualified.
How a search runs
After the brief, Club AI scores fit across the club's vetted network and a dedicated strategist hand-curates a tight slate of pre-qualified candidates, many of whom never touch the open market. You meet a short list, and the fee is owed only when a candidate you chose signs. A partner strategist replies within 24 hours to scope the search, in confidence.
Step by step, from brief to invoice
The company briefs the role: what it must achieve, the employment terms and a salary indication, which The Quantum Club's general terms ask partners to provide in good time. The club then introduces candidates, an introduction being the first written presentation of a person, for example on a shared shortlist or in ClubOS, and the company gives feedback on each within a reasonable time. Interviews follow, and the decision to hire stays entirely with the company. The fee falls due when the employment contract is signed, and the invoice is payable within fourteen days unless the agreement sets another term. Nothing is billed before that moment: not the brief, not the search, not the shortlist.
What counts as a placement
A success fee needs a clear definition of success, so read how a firm defines it. Under the club's general terms the fee is owed on the signed hire even if the appointment ends up taking another form than first planned, such as a contract for services, a secondment, or an appointment through a group company or a third party. Hiring a second person the club introduced, even for a different role, is a separate placement with its own fee. And where the agreement fixes no other rate, the fee is 25% of gross annual salary, a base that includes holiday pay and leaves out variable bonuses.
Why the terms protect an introduction
A success-only firm does all its work before it earns anything, so its terms protect the one thing it delivers: the introduction. Under the club's general terms, a candidate the club introduces stays protected for twelve months after the introduction. If the company, a group company or a third party it involves hires that person outside the club in that period, in any form, the full fee is still owed, and any hire of an introduced candidate is reported to the club within seven days. Ask any No Cure, No Pay firm the same question: what happens if you hire someone it introduced, directly, later.
The strongest objection, and how to test for it
The sharpest critique of success-only search ran in Harvard Business Review in 2021. Its authors, Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, Gregory Nagel and Carrie Green, called the contingency arrangement and the percentage fee two perverse incentives: consultants paid when they produce a hire, whatever that person's fitness for the job, make nothing on an internal candidate, and many oversell high-priced outsiders as a result. Their remedy is a fixed fee plus a retainer. The objection deserves a direct answer rather than a dismissal, so test any success-only firm against it: set its shortlist beside your internal candidates, ask what its guarantee does if a hire fails, and ask what it still does for the person after the signature. At The Quantum Club the answers are a guarantee set out in your agreement, matching that weighs fit and the life around the role rather than availability, and check-ins after placement.
Frequently asked
What does No Cure, No Pay mean in recruitment?
It means you only pay a fee when the recruiter successfully places a candidate. There is no upfront retainer and no fee for an unsuccessful search. The recruiter carries the risk of the search.
Is there a guarantee if the hire doesn't work out?
At The Quantum Club, yes. Every placement is backed by a guarantee laid down in your agreement: if a hire leaves within the agreed period, we run a replacement search at no cost or credit the fee against your next placement. The guarantee is honoured in kind, never as a cash refund.
How fast can you deliver a shortlist?
Club AI scores fit across the network immediately and a strategist curates a tight, pre-qualified slate; a partner strategist replies within 24 hours to scope the brief.
When exactly is the fee owed?
At The Quantum Club, when the employment contract is signed, and not before. The invoice is then payable within fourteen days unless your agreement sets a different term. If a placed hire leaves within the period your agreement sets, the guarantee is honoured as a free replacement search or a credit against your next placement, never as a cash refund.
Can a company try it before committing?
Yes. Club Promo is a complimentary five-candidate trial on one mandate, so a company can judge the calibre of the shortlist before any fee is in play.
Sources
- The Quantum Club's general terms and conditions (in Dutch)
- Harvard Business Review: The High Cost of Poor Succession Planning (2021) (opens in a new tab)
- Robert Half Japan: What is a recruitment agency? How it works, fees, and the hiring process (2025) (opens in a new tab)
- AESC: Retained Executive Search vs Contingency: What's the Difference? (2024) (opens in a new tab)
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