Flat fees – many people in the recruitment world are sceptical. However it’s something that I really believe in.

In my view there were (and still are) too many recruiters thinking that they could just source a CV from a job board, match it to a job spec, send it over to a client and charge a fee if they were placed – that’s not recruitment. What I wanted to do was build a business that gave a quality service at a reasonable price. So whether a client is recruiting an Accounts Clerk or a Finance Director, they pay 14%; 12% if it’s a sole agency agreement. This is a fee level we’ve committed to until at least the end of 2010.

We’ve been accused of buying business, of coming up with a knee jerk reaction to the recession, of panicking in a tight market. But in fact, when I set this business up in 2001 that was my model – we’ve always done it and we have no plans to change it. Because it works! If that upsets some of the big boys who think that we’re somehow ‘devaluing’ the service by not charging 25% then frankly, that’s their problem.