What clients and candidates ask about recruiters, in the order they ask

Examples, not a measurement, and why the order matters

We have not measured what hiring managers or candidates type into an AI assistant, and nothing on this page is a ranking or a count. The questions below come from how a hire runs on each side, written the way a person might put them in conversational search. Your own intake calls, client briefs and candidate registrations are a better source than this page, and the later sections say how to collect from them.

The order matters because each question belongs to a moment and to a page. A hiring manager deciding whether to use an agency at all is not yet asking about your replacement period, and a candidate who came out of an interview this morning is not asking whether registering costs anything. Each question carries its own search intent, and the page for the side that asks is where its answer goes.

In our audit of 9,483 small business websites (40 trades, 90 metros, late August to early September 2026), 61.5% had no question-and-answer content of any kind, and 50.7% asked a question in at least one heading but gave no answer beneath it in a form a machine could pick out. Both figures cover the whole sample, and the audit publishes no cut for recruiting agencies. A site that answers these ten questions in writing is already unlike the 61.5%.

The client's questions, from whether to use an agency to exclusivity

The first question deserves an honest answer, including the roles a client could fill without you. A page that argues only for using an agency has not answered what the hiring manager asked, and the rest of the page reads as a pitch.

The replacement answer needs its conditions as much as its length: whether it is a free replacement or a partial refund, whether it applies when the client ends the employment, and whether the fee has to have been paid on time. A length with no conditions reads as a promise your terms may not make, so copy the conditions from the terms themselves.

Speed and exclusivity are answered with your own figures and your own terms. The time to a first shortlist comes from the desk's record, counted the way desk pages for a recruiting agency's specialties describes, and the exclusivity answer says what the client gets in return for it: a named recruiter, a shortlist date, a different fee, and a length after which either side can end it.

The candidate's questions, from registering to after the interview

The cost answer has a second reason to be plain. Google's job posting documentation does not allow job postings that require payment from applicants. Whether an agency may charge a candidate for anything at all is a question the rules answer differently by jurisdiction, so the page states what you do and counsel confirms it.

The CV answer has rules behind it that the page does not state. How long a CV may be kept, what consent is needed before it goes to an employer, and what a candidate may ask you to delete are set by data-protection rules that differ by jurisdiction, and your counsel or regulator states them. The candidate page gives your policy in plain words and links the full privacy notice.

The pay answer is the worker terms, restated for someone who has not signed anything yet; a temp agency's licenses and terms has those terms as sentences to fill in. The placement-time answer is a range from your own record, with the reasons a search takes longer, because a candidate plans around it.

Where both sides' questions are already written down

An agency hears both sides every working day, in places that already keep a record:

• Intake calls with clients: the questions a hiring manager asks before agreeing terms, which may already be in the call notes.
• Client briefs and the emails around them: the questions about fees, timing and exclusivity that come before a brief is signed.
• Candidate registrations: the questions asked on the registration call, or typed into the form's free-text box.
• The first week of a temporary assignment: the pay and timesheet questions a new worker brings to the office.
• The recruiters' inboxes and the site's contact form: the same questions again, in the asker's own words.

Collect for a set period, such as a month, with the side and the date beside each question, then count which questions come back. The ones that recur on both your list and the lists above are where the first answers go.

Keeping the question and removing the person

What goes into the log is the question, never the person who asked it. Before a recruiter adds a line:

• Remove names, employers, salaries, addresses and anything else that points to one client or one candidate.
• Turn a candidate's own situation into a general question: "I was let go from [company] last month, will that count against me" becomes "do employers ask why I left my last job".
• Leave out anything about health, family, age or any other personal characteristic, even as a general question, unless counsel has cleared an answer for the site.
• Never paste from a CV or a brief. The brief is the client's; the CV is the candidate's.
• Keep the log where every recruiter can add to it, and mark which side asked.

What an agency may keep about the people who ask, and for how long, is a question for counsel where you operate. A log that holds only questions, with the people removed, keeps that question small.

One page for each side, and where each answer goes

Answer each question on the page for the side that asks it: the client's on the pages for employers (how it works, fees, the replacement period, exclusivity), the candidate's on the pages for candidates (registering, pay, the CV, after the interview). One FAQ that mixes them can put the employer pitch above the candidate's answer, which is the wrong-side problem that AI visibility for recruiters sets up a column to catch.

Each answer takes the shape set out in writing to be cited: the question as a heading, a first paragraph of 40 to 80 words that answers it completely, with the agency's name, the place and the figure where there is one, and the detail after it. The answer-page template lays out a whole answer page in that shape. Two answers written out, one for each side:

<h2>What happens if the person you placed leaves in the first [period]?</h2>
<p>[Agency name] replaces a permanent hire who leaves within [period]
of starting, once and at no fee, provided [the conditions in your
terms]. If we cannot find a replacement within [time], we [refund or
credit rule]. Temporary staff are covered by the separate terms on
our [client terms page]. Last reviewed [month year].</p>

<h2>Do I pay anything to register with [Agency name]?</h2>
<p>[No. The employers we recruit for pay our fee, and you pay nothing
to register, interview or be placed.] [Or: state exactly what a
candidate pays, and why.] Registering takes [time]: [the steps].
Last reviewed [month year].</p>

The rest of what an agency's site states, for both sides, is on the recruiting and staffing overview.