Last week, I told you about the Finance Director in Bangkok who was poached by the same recruitment agency that placed him exactly three years earlier.
That story still circulates in boardrooms across Thailand, more than a decade after it happened.
It circulates because it is not unique.
Recruitment agencies that poach their own placements operate in plain sight.
They do it because nothing in the agreement stops them.
The client (hiring company) signed a recruitment agreement and fee schedule, not a protection clause.
And when the Finance Director walks out three years later, the agency collects a second fee from their other client on the very same candidate.
Below is the exact language you can use to close that gap. Three clauses. Add them to your recruitment agency agreement before you sign.
Clause 1: No-poach protection
“The Recruiter agrees not to directly or indirectly solicit, recruit, or approach any employee of the Client for employment opportunities with any other organization, for a period of [insert].”
What to insert: most recruitment companies use 12 months. Some push for 18 and 24 months.
Clause 2: Placed candidate protection
“Any candidate successfully placed by the Recruiter shall be permanently excluded from future recruitment efforts by the Recruiter for any third party, regardless of time elapsed since placement.”
This is the clause that directly addresses the Bangkok story.
Without the word “permanently,” a recruiter can argue that the restriction expired.
Permanent means permanent. Expect pushback here. That pushback tells you something.
Clause 3: Competitor disclosure
“Prior to engagement, the Recruiter shall provide the Client with current and recent clients (within the past 24 months) from whom the Recruiter is contractually restricted from approaching or soliciting employees. The Client acknowledges that the Recruiter may be unable to source candidates from these organizations. The Client accepts this limitation as a condition of engagement.”
This one matters more than most HR teams realize.
A recruiter who, at the same time, is serving you and your two closest competitors has an obvious conflict.
If the recruiter cannot touch two of your top three target companies because they placed people there last year, you need to know that on day one, not after six weeks of a search going nowhere.
Disclosure alone does not fix that conflict, but it forces the conversation before the agreement is signed, not after someone leaves.
What you must do next
Three minutes to read. Two minutes to send to your legal team.
By the way, if your external recruiter hesitates on any of these three clauses, you have your answer about how they operate.
