Half the fee. Paid by you, not the employer.
Traditional recruiters charge the hiring company 20-25% of your first-year salary. They look like they work for you. They do not. The check is signed by the employer, so the employer is the customer.
The numbers
| Aspect | Traditional recruiter | Knock. |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays | The employer | You |
| Who they work for | The employer (signs the check) | You (sign the check) |
| Fee on a $150K offer | $30,000-$37,500 to employer | $15,000 (capped) |
| Fee on a $300K offer | $60,000-$75,000 to employer | $15,000 (cap holds) |
| If you do not land | Free to you, but they keep pushing other candidates | $0. 90-day guarantee. |
| Payment trigger | When employer pays them, weeks after start | 30 days after your start date |
| What they sell | Your CV to many companies | A tailored application per role + a warm intro to one named recruiter per role |
| Quiet search | Your CV ends up in databases. Hard to control. | You never appear in a database. Alias inbox. |
| Volume | 50-200 candidates per opening | Cap of 6 concurrent clients. We submit 2-3 tailored applications per week, per client. |
When a traditional recruiter is the better choice
Honest answer: when you are a passive candidate getting calls from search firms unsolicited, that signals you have credibility a recruiter can monetize. They will work for you (lightly) because you are inventory. Take those calls. The downside is they will not advocate for your specific career trajectory — they will place you where their employer client needs a hire. So treat those calls as one channel, not your strategy.
A traditional recruiter is also the right call when you are at C-suite tier and the hiring company is paying a retained search firm for that specific role. The firm is on a flat fee paid up front, so the misaligned-incentive issue is smaller. We do not serve that tier today.
When Knock. is the better choice
When you are searching actively, you want a quiet pipeline (no database, no LinkedIn open-to-work flag), and you want the search to make weekly progress without you babysitting it. When you would rather pay 10% of your own salary to someone aligned with you than have a recruiter paid 25% by the employer talk you into a role you should have declined.
If that lands, send Umur a paragraph about your search.
See how we work →