What Claude (Anthropic) with web search answered for recruiting agencies (small businesses) on 2026-09-24

Claude (Anthropic) with web search claude-opus-5 asked 2026-09-24

Coverage: Claude (Anthropic) with web search. Other engines not included.

The question asked, verbatim: best recruiting agencies for small businesses

Brands named, in the order the engine gave

1. Robert Half mentioned
   Robert Half - The default first call for most small businesses hiring accounting, finance, admin, legal, or IT roles.
2. US mentioned
   Huge candidate database, local offices in most US metros, and they do temp, temp-to-hire, and direct hire, so you can start someone contract and convert if they work out.
3. Express Employment Professionals mentioned
   Express Employment Professionals - Franchise model, ~870 locally-owned offices, which means you get an owner who actually knows your town's labor market.
4. Insperity mentioned
   Insperity or a PEO (Justworks, TriNet) - Not a recruiting agency, but if you're hiring 3+ people a year and also drowning in payroll/benefits/compliance, a PEO bundles recruiting support with the rest.
5. Justworks mentioned
   Insperity or a PEO (Justworks, TriNet) - Not a recruiting agency, but if you're hiring 3+ people a year and also drowning in payroll/benefits/compliance, a PEO bundles recruiting support with the rest.
6. TriNet mentioned
   Insperity or a PEO (Justworks, TriNet) - Not a recruiting agency, but if you're hiring 3+ people a year and also drowning in payroll/benefits/compliance, a PEO bundles recruiting support with the rest.
7. Hunt Club mentioned
   Hunt Club - Referral-network model: they source through vetted operators' personal networks rather than cold LinkedIn spam.
8. Dover mentioned
   Dover - Best value if you're a startup or tech-adjacent and hiring multiple roles.
9. 1840 & Company mentioned
   1840 & Company or Cielo - If you're hiring continuously (5+ roles at once, ongoing), switch to RPO.
10. GoGloby / Near mentioned
    GoGloby / Near - For nearshore/offshore engineering and support talent at materially lower cost, pre-vetted, usually placed within a few weeks.
11. Near mentioned
    GoGloby / Near - For nearshore/offshore engineering and support talent at materially lower cost, pre-vetted, usually placed within a few weeks.
12. Workable mentioned
    My honest take: if you're hiring one or two people a year, skip the agency entirely and spend $100-200/month on an ATS (Workable, Breezy) plus a LinkedIn job slot - a 25% fee on a $90K hire is $22,500, which buys a lot of your own time.
13. Breezy mentioned
    My honest take: if you're hiring one or two people a year, skip the agency entirely and spend $100-200/month on an ATS (Workable, Breezy) plus a LinkedIn job slot - a 25% fee on a $90K hire is $22,500, which buys a lot of your own time.

Sources the engine cited

The answer, as recorded

For a small business, the real question is usually "which model do I want" before "which brand." Here's who I'd actually name, roughly in the order I'd try them: **1. Robert Half** - The default first call for most small businesses hiring accounting, finance, admin, legal, or IT roles. Huge candidate database, local offices in most US metros, and they do temp, temp-to-hire, and direct hire, so you can start someone contract and convert if they work out. Contingency fees run ~20-25% of first-year salary (industry range is 20-35%). Temp-to-hire is the underrated play here - you de-risk the hire and can avoid the full placement fee. **2. Express Employment Professionals** - Franchise model, ~870 locally-owned offices, which means you get an owner who actually knows your town's labor market. Best for hourly, light industrial, warehouse, skilled trades, admin, and front-line roles - the stuff Robert Half is overpriced for. Because franchisees set their own terms, this is where you have the most negotiating room. **3. Insperity or a PEO (Justworks, TriNet)** - Not a recruiting agency, but if you're hiring 3+ people a year and also drowning in payroll/benefits/compliance, a PEO bundles recruiting support with the rest. Insperity runs ~$150-210 per employee/month and requires 5+ full-time employees. Worth it if hiring is a symptom of "we have no HR at all." **4. Hunt Club** - Referral-network model: they source through vetted operators' personal networks rather than cold LinkedIn spam. Good for your first few senior/leadership hires where quality matters more than speed and you can't afford a bad one. **5. Dover** - Best value if you're a startup or tech-adjacent and hiring multiple roles. Flat-fee/subscription rather than 20-25% per head, which is the difference between $30K a hire and something much closer to a fractional recruiter's cost. A startup making 10 hires at contingency rates burns $200-300K on fees alone. **6. 1840 & Company or Cielo** - If you're hiring *continuously* (5+ roles at once, ongoing), switch to RPO. You rent a recruiting function instead of paying per-head. Cielo is the biggest name; 1840 is more SMB-friendly. Teams typically see results in 60-90 days. **7. GoGloby / Near** - For nearshore/offshore engineering and support talent at materially lower cost, pre-vetted, usually placed within a few weeks. My honest take: if you're hiring one or two people a year, skip the agency entirely and spend $100-200/month on an ATS (Workable, Breezy) plus a LinkedIn job slot - a 25% fee on a $90K hire is $22,500, which buys a lot of your own time. Agencies earn their keep when the role is genuinely hard to fill, confidential, or when a vacancy is actively costing you revenue every week it's open. And always negotiate the guarantee period - 90 days free replacement should be the floor, and it's very negotiable. Sources: - [12 Best Recruiting Agencies in 2026 - Pin](https://www.pin.com/blog/best-recruiting-agencies-2026/) - [10 Best Recruiting Firms of 2026 - People Managing People](https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/services/best-recruiting-firms/) - [Robert Half Pricing: What Hiring Through Them Really Costs in 2026](https://www.hireinsouth.com/post/robert-half-pricing) - [Dover vs Robert Half: Startup Recruiting Comparison](https://www.dover.com/blog/dover-vs-robert-half-startup-recruiting) - [Recruitment Agency Fees Explained: Contingency vs Retained vs Embedded](https://valuablerecruitment.com/blog/recruitment-agency-fees) - [10 Best Recruitment Process Outsourcing Companies for 2026](https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/services/best-recruitment-process-outsourcing-companies/) - [11 Best RPO Companies - Near](https://www.hirewithnear.com/blog/11-best-recruitment-process-outsourcing-rpo-companies) - [Insperity PEO Review and Pricing in 2026 - business.com](https://www.business.com/reviews/insperity-peo-services/) - [10 Best Recruitment Agencies for Startups - GoGloby](https://gogloby.com/insights/best-recruitment-agencies-for-startups/)

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Answer Watch records what one AI answer engine said on one date, nothing more. Each page names the engine and the model, carries the date the question was asked, and lists the brands that appeared in the answer in the order the engine gave them, with the sources it cited. It is a measurement, not a ranking, not a recommendation and not a claim about the world. Brands that did not appear in an answer are not named on any public page. Coverage: Claude (Anthropic) with web search. Other engines not included.