Dear Bob ... I am looking to read over a typical contract (if there is such a thing) that Headhunters have with clients for services rendered. The reason I ask is I am going to do some recruiting and a potential client asked to see my contract. I am not sure if one needs to put in a ton of information or is it better to keep it simple. Can you help? - Recruiter-in-Waiting Dear RiW ... What's most important is pr Dear Bob … I am looking to read over a typical contract (if there is such a thing) that Headhunters have with clients for services rendered. The reason I ask is I am going to do some recruiting and a potential client asked to see my contract. I am not sure if one needs to put in a ton of information or is it better to keep it simple. Can you help? – Recruiter-in-Waiting Dear RiW … What’s most important is probably outside what the contract can do for you: (1) Qualifying your clients; and (2) making sure your client’s expectations are well-aligned with your own. Keep in mind that contracts are there for when things go wrong, not for when they go right. From that perspective, what’s most important is making sure you and your client are completely clear where your responsibility begins and ends. Your client is responsible for clearly describing what sort of employee it’s looking for. It’s also responsible for final screening and selection. Your responsibility is limited to the delivery of qualified candidates based on their criteria. You should spell out the amount of due diligence you’re expected to perform (background checks and so on) before referring applicants to the client, and what liability, if any, you have should an applicant turn out to have something in his or her background that should have raised a red flag for you but didn’t. I don’t know what’s typical in the recruiting field. The basics are that clients have a choice between two types of search — retained and contingent. They pay for retained searches regardless of the result; contingent searches are paid more or less on commission. You bear all financial risk for contingent searches. That also means you need to know when to cut your losses on a difficult search because you can invest a lot of time and effort where the chance of getting any money out of the deal is small. With retained searches, your client bears all of the financial risk. It’s appropriate for positions that are hard to fill. Your risk is to your reputation, since you get paid whether or not you fill the slot. What else to spell out in a contract? The biggest issue is what happens if a new hire doesn’t work out, and for what reason. Your client might want some concessions. As a courtesy, you also should include some language that prevents you from using your client as a source of potential recruits for future searches. This isn’t a field I’m an expert in, but that should be enough to get you started. – Bob Technology Industry