What does it cost to hire someone in Ireland?

The percentage model, in euro

Most Irish agencies work on contingency: nothing is owed unless you hire someone they introduced, and the fee is a share of that person's first-year salary.

The structural feature worth noticing: the fee tracks the salary, not the difficulty. Filling a €60,000 role is not €5,000 harder than filling a €45,000 one, but it costs that much more.

What a flat fee looks like instead

No VAT is added to either of ours for an Irish business: as a UK-established supplier to an Irish business customer the reverse charge applies, and you account for the VAT in your own return.

The Guaranteed Hire bands are €1,800 up to €34,999, €2,300 from €35,000 to €49,999, €3,300 from €50,000 to €69,999 and €4,300 at €70,000 and above. Every band carries the 100% refund if the role is not filled.

The gap on a real hire

Take a €45,000 role — a common Irish mid-level salary.

• Contingency at 20%: €9,000
• Guaranteed Hire, same salary band: €2,300
• Difference: €6,700 for the same outcome — a screened shortlist and a hire

That gap is the honest argument for the model, and it widens as salaries rise. At €80,000 a 20% fee is €16,000 against €4,300.

What advertising actually costs you

The €499 option is genuinely cheaper in cash, and genuinely more expensive in time. From our own Irish pipeline data: 322 candidates sourced and screened produced 9 hires — about 30 candidates worked per hire, of whom only around one in six was worth putting in front of an employer.

That screening is not admin. It is phone calls with people who are at work during the day, most of whom turn out not to be right. If someone in your business has those hours, advertising is the correct choice and you should not pay more. If nobody does, the fee is buying the hours back — and the failure mode of the cheap option is not a bad advert, it is 40 applications sitting unread for a fortnight while the good candidates take other jobs.

The cost nobody puts on the invoice

An unfilled role. A production line running short, a manager covering two jobs, overtime paid to bridge a gap — none of it appears as a recruitment cost, and on a role of any consequence it usually outweighs the fee inside a month.

That is the number worth carrying into the decision: not "what does the recruiter cost" but "what does the empty seat cost, per week, while we decide".

Questions worth asking any Irish agency

1. Is the percentage on base salary or total package? Bonus and car allowance can add thousands.
2. What exactly triggers the fee? "Introduced" is sometimes defined widely enough to cover someone who later applies directly.
3. What does the rebate pay — cash, or a credit against another search? Over what period?
4. What happens if the role is not filled? On contingency, nothing is owed, but nothing is promised either. Ask what the actual commitment is.
5. Is VAT being added? For an Irish business customer of a non-established supplier it generally should not be.

Where the money actually goes on a hire

The fee is the visible number. It is rarely the largest one.

The empty seat. A production role standing vacant costs the overtime paid to cover it plus whatever output is lost; a sales role costs the pipeline nobody is working. On most roles of consequence that exceeds the entire recruitment fee within a month, which is why speed is usually worth more than a discount.

Internal time. Somebody writes the advert, reads the applications, makes the calls, arranges the interviews and chases the references. If that person's time is worth anything, it belongs in the comparison — and it is the whole reason the €499 route is cheaper in cash and not always cheaper in total.

A wrong hire. The most expensive outcome by a distance: the salary paid, the time invested, the disruption, and then the same vacancy again three months later. This is the actual argument for screening properly rather than hiring the first available person, and it is why a shortlist of four interviewed candidates is worth more than twelve unscreened CVs.

Onboarding. Equipment, training, the weeks before someone is productive. Fixed regardless of how you recruited, but it belongs in the plan.

A sensible way to decide

1. Work out what the vacancy costs you per week. Most employers have never calculated it, and it changes the conversation.
2. Compare that against the fee difference between doing it yourself and having it done.
3. Ask who will actually do the screening, and whether they have the hours this month.
4. Then pick the route — per role, not as a company policy. Advertise the roles with an active Irish market; hand over the ones that have already failed, or that you know are searches rather than adverts.

Frequently asked questions