Shannon,

While I think asking markup is a good idea, I would caution you not to use an actual percentage (especially with the example being given at 15%).

Simply put, my years of experience in staffing and recruiting in the contract space tell me that John’s 15% figure is unrealistic, and you’d be hard pressed to find ANY firm who would agree to that. This is because the firms burden is usually hire than that. The agency where I work “payrolls” consultants at no less than 21%.

If theoretically, you were a candidate of mine and I had to find you, qualify you, present you, coordinate interviews, and connect you with a client where I’ve spent countless hours on building the relationship in terms of business development, negotiating specific contract terms and hashing out master agreements etc. I would find it offensive for you to request I cap a markup at 15% when my office would already be losing 6% just by payrolling you at that percentage. The account manager, the recruiter, and the company itself would make NO money. In fact, it would cost us money.

By this point in the above scenario, you would most likely have concerned myself as your recruiter to a point that I likely would not present you to the client at all, and I would have already moved on to other candidates where I too could be permitted to get some return out of the deal.

In short, I think you should absolutely ask markup so you can decide what you think is fair. I’d advise against trying to demand a fixed markup as it will more likely result in you being passed over in favor of another candidate than it ever would in helping you get better contract terms for that role.

-Bob

Yeah, I do service… not sales…