Plenty of parties claim they'll fill your vacancies. The difference between an agency that delivers and one that mainly switches ads on is rarely visible on a website. It is visible in the answers to a handful of concrete questions.
The questions
- What is the cost per candidate in my trade and region, based on previous campaigns?
- Which numbers do you report weekly, and what happens when they disappoint?
- Who does the work: the team I'm speaking with, or someone else after signing?
- Do you measure after the lead too: intakes and placements, not just clicks?
- Who owns the ad accounts, the data and the creatives if we stop?
- What do you expect from my team on follow-up, and within what timeframe?
- Do you handle both candidate recruitment and client acquisition, or only one?
- Which case resembles my situation most, and what went wrong there?
- What happens in month one, and when should I expect first results?
The red flags
Guaranteed numbers without any knowledge of your region and trade. Reports showing only reach and clicks. Cases without names or without figures. And a party that asks nothing about your follow-up process, because that's exactly where most campaigns break down.
“Don't ask what an agency can deliver. Ask what went wrong in their last campaign and what they changed afterwards.”
Candidates and clients belong together
Many agencies buy only candidate recruitment, then hit the opposite problem a year later: candidates, but not enough assignments. At Leadstars the two sit deliberately in one system, the Job Acquisition Machine for candidates and the Client Acquisition System for clients, so growth stays balanced on both sides.
How to start the partnership
Start small and measurable: one trade, one region, a fixed reporting cadence and clear agreements on follow-up. What becomes visible in the numbers in that first period tells you more about the partner than any proposal.
