It is a fair question, and for a senior Dynamics 365 hire the answer is not really about the fee. It is about what the fee protects against, and about who you never get to meet when a role is advertised rather than found.
- 24h market scanned
- 48h candidates in front of you
- 5 → 2 → 1 CVs, interviews, hire
A consultancy that places people, not a recruiter that sends CVs.
Ionyze delivers Dynamics 365 programmes, from the business case through to the year after go-live. The talent service exists because clients kept asking the people who had just delivered their programme to find the people who would run it. That is a different starting point from a recruitment business, and it changes what you get.
We have done the job
The people assessing your candidate have led the programmes the role sits inside. They know what a senior functional consultant has to do on a live implementation because they have done it, and they can tell someone who has from someone who has been near it.
We start from the programme, not the advert
A recruiter works from the job description. We work from where the programme is, what is about to go wrong, and what kind of person stops it. Often that is not quite the role that was written down.
We test what a CV cannot show
Can they challenge a requirement? Change a senior stakeholder's mind? Know when Dynamics 365 should bend and when the process should? Those questions decide whether a senior hire works, and a keyword match cannot answer any of them.
Practitioners assess practitioners. A recruiter matches keywords. We match the work.
Going direct looks cheaper because the only line on the invoice is zero. The cost is still there, it just arrives later and in a different form: the days someone spends reading applications, the weeks the role sits open, and the chance that the person you hire is the best of who happened to apply that fortnight rather than the best available. Put the two side by side and the fee is the smaller number, and the only one you can predict.
A known cost against an unknown one.
The fee is the smaller of the two figures on this page, and it is the only one you can predict. Both columns describe the same hire, filled two different ways.
Going direct: the unknown cost
Around half a year's salary, usually not visible for about three months (illustrative). Screening time is paid again if the hire is wrong.
Using a talent service: the known cost
You interview two people rather than six (estimate). The risk is filtered before you spend the time.
| Item | Going direct | Using a talent service |
|---|---|---|
| Recruiter fee | None | A percentage of first year salary, typically 18-22% (illustrative) |
| Screening and interview time | Two to three days of a senior person's time, paid again if the hire is wrong (estimate) | Lower. You interview two people rather than six (estimate) |
| Cost of a hire that does not work | Around half a year's salary, usually not visible for about three months (illustrative) | The same risk, met earlier, by filtering before you spend the time |
| Who you see | Whoever answers the advert | Five strong CVs, including people who are not applying anywhere |
All figures are illustrative or estimates for a single senior Dynamics 365 hire. They are there to show the shape of the decision, not to quote a price.
A senior Dynamics 365 search filled by advert produces a few hundred applications, six interviews and one hire. Filled through a specialist it produces five CVs, two interviews and one hire. The work in the middle is the same. The difference is who does it, and who you get to choose from.
Five strong CVs, two interviews, one hire.
That is the shape of it, and it is why the interview time on the right is a fraction of the time on the left.
The fee is what you pay to interview two people instead of six, and to be choosing from the right two.
Your time back, a shorter search, and people an advert never reaches.
The fee sits at the upper end of the market because it buys more than a search: the people doing the finding have delivered the programme your hire will work on, and know what the role has to do with it.
Less of your week
Going direct, somebody on your side reads a few hundred applications and the panel sits six interviews. With us you read five CVs and sit two. The screening load moves to us, and it is our job rather than your week.
Faster to a shortlist
An advert runs for weeks before you know who has applied, and the vacancy costs you every one of them. We aim to scan the market within 24 hours of the brief and have candidates in front of you within 48, because we start from people we already know.
We know the people
The senior Dynamics 365 market is small and mostly employed. We already know who is in it, who is good, and who would move for the right role. That reach is the part of the market an advert cannot buy.
A wrong hire is usually not visible for about three months.
Going direct moves the cost rather than removing it: into interview hours, into a longer vacancy, and into the risk of hiring from whoever happened to apply that fortnight.
Senior hires, not junior ones.
This argument holds for a senior appointment, roughly eight to twelve years of experience, where the pool is small and mostly not looking for work.
The four we hear most.
More on how the talent service works, and what it costs to run: The talent proposition
Almost certainly, and it is not really a question of skill. It is time and reach. Reading a few hundred applications to find the handful worth a call costs two or three days of somebody's week (estimate), and the people you most want are not in that pile, because they are not applying to anything.
Judge it on the shortlist: five you would seriously consider, not fifteen to sift.
ionyze.co.uk/talent/value-case · Ionyze Ltd. All figures are illustrative or estimates.