General Terms for Clients

Services and contract

We provide Executive Search, Headhunting and Market Mapping for roles in Bulgaria and among Bulgarians abroad.

Every engagement rests on three documents, signed with qualified electronic signatures: a framework agreement, an Order for each search (the positions, the fee and the guarantee) and a data protection agreement. This page summarises their standard terms. Where your agreement says something different, the agreement prevails.

Fees

• Headhunting: 18% of the hired candidate’s annual gross pay, for each candidate hired.
• Executive Search: 22–25% of annual gross pay, in three instalments: when the Order is signed, when the shortlist is presented and on the hire. The instalments are part of the fee, not an extra charge.
• Market Mapping: a fixed fee from €2,500, paid at the start. It is credited against the fee for a later search for the same role.
• Minimum fee for Executive Search and Headhunting: €3,000 per hire. All amounts exclude VAT.
• Annual gross pay is the gross pay agreed with the candidate, including taxes and both the employee’s and the employer’s social and health contributions, and excluding bonuses and share options. Where a monthly figure is agreed, the annual figure is twelve times it.
• If you hire the candidate into a different post from the one we searched for, the fee follows the post actually filled.

Your part in the search

You send us a brief for each role. You give us your view on the candidates we present within 7 days and hold the interviews within 14 days. Once you sign an employment contract with a candidate, you tell us within 3 days whom you hired and the agreed gross pay.

Payment

The fee for each hire is due within 10 days of the candidate signing the employment contract with you, by bank transfer against our invoice. Instalments under an Order are due within 10 days of the event the Order sets for each of them. Invoicing details are on the Billing page.

Stopping a search early

If the Order provides for a withdrawal fee and you end the search early when at least 2 candidates we put forward have been approved (you gave a positive view of them or invited them to an interview), the withdrawal fee in the Order is due. Instalments already paid are deducted from it.

Guarantee

The guarantee period is set in the Order: as standard, 3 months for Headhunting and 6 months for Executive Search, from the first hired candidate’s start date. If the employment ends within it, whether you end it or the candidate leaves, we put forward new candidates at no extra fee until a suitable one is hired. The new search starts within 5 working days. Each time, the remaining period is shortened by the time the candidate worked for you.

The guarantee does not cover redundancies, restructuring or changes to the role’s original specification. It also lapses if the fee was paid late; if the candidate’s duties, the education required, the pay or the employer within your group change and the candidate leaves or is dismissed because of that; or if the candidate is dismissed because part of the business closes, staff are cut or work stops for more than 15 working days.

Introduced candidates

If, within 6 months of an introduction, you sign a contract with any candidate in it, including for another role, the full fee for that candidate is due, set by the post they hold.

A candidate who applied to you directly more than 6 months before our introduction counts as ours. One who applied to you in the last 6 months counts as yours, provided you tell us within 1 working day of the introduction.

Your employees are off limits

We do not approach your employees while the mandate runs and for 12 months after it.

Confidentiality

Both parties keep each other’s confidential information secret, with no time limit: we keep information about your company and the mandate confidential, and you do the same with the candidate information you receive from us.

Liability

To the extent the law allows, neither party is liable for indirect or consequential loss, such as lost profit. We are not responsible for the acts of the candidates you hire.

Data protection

Each party is a controller of the candidates’ personal data it processes to perform the agreement; given the shared purpose, the parties may also be regarded as joint controllers. Our data protection agreement sets out who does what. We pass on a candidate’s data only for the specific mandate and only with the candidate’s agreement. Please use it only for that mandate, keep it secure and delete it when you no longer need it.

Term and termination

Unless the agreement says otherwise, it runs for 12 months from signature and does not renew automatically. Either party may end it with 2 months’ written notice, or if the other party does not remedy a breach within 10 days of a written notice.

Governing law

Bulgarian law applies, including the Obligations and Contracts Act. Disputes go to the competent court in Sofia. Where the agreement is bilingual, the Bulgarian text prevails.