When an agency is worth the fee, and when it is not
An agency earns its fee when the people you need are not reading job ads. That describes almost every AI leadership seat in Australia: the candidates who have carried an AI program into production are employed, well paid and rarely looking. It also describes senior engineering and architecture seats on a specific cloud stack, where the pool in one city may be a few hundred people.
An agency is less likely to be worth it for roles that attract strong direct applicants, or where your own talent team already has an AI network and the time to use it. Advertising first costs little. The signal to bring in a specialist is a flood of applicants who do not fit, or a silence from the people who do.
Pay transparency is part of the calculation. Roughly nine in ten Australian AI job ads do not disclose salary, and only 7.7% of AI leadership ads do (Galileo Search analysis of advertised Australian AI roles, July 2026). A specialist should arrive with the market rate already in hand; if they ask you what to pay, they are guessing too.
Eight questions to ask any AI recruiter
One: what have you placed in this exact seat family in the last twelve months? An anonymised list is fine; a list of logos from unrelated roles is not. Two: where will the shortlist come from, an advert or a map of people already doing the work? Three: how will you assess AI capability beyond keywords on a CV? Look for a scenario or a work sample built from your own context.
Four: what does the role pay, and from what data? Five: what is the fee, in writing, and what is the replacement guarantee? Six: are you working this role on contingency alongside other agencies? Parallel contingency searches usually mean the same candidates are approached several times, which damages your reputation with a small senior pool. Seven: how is confidentiality handled for a replacement or a new seat? Eight: which cloud stack pools do you search? AWS and Bedrock engineers and Azure and Copilot engineers are largely different people in Australia, and a recruiter who does not ask is not searching either properly.
If they ask you what to pay, they are guessing too.
Red flags
A stack of CVs within a day for a Head of AI search: that is a database search, not a search. No view on whether you need a build, adopt or transform leader: the three mandates hire very different people, and a recruiter who treats them as one title will send all three. No salary data, or salary data that is only the advertised range. A fee that is vague until after the first interview.
Be careful with recruiters who promise AI capability assessment without explaining it. Ask to see the assessment. If it is a keyword match or a generic coding test for a leadership seat, it will not tell you whether the person can carry an AI program through a resistant business.
How executive search and AI recruitment fees work
Permanent recruitment and executive search in Australia are usually charged as a fee tied to the successful candidate's first-year package. Contingent agencies are paid only on placement; retained and exclusive searches take part of the fee up front in exchange for a dedicated search and a guaranteed shortlist. Contract placements are usually priced as a margin on the contractor's day rate, which should be disclosed to you.
Whatever the model, get the fee and the replacement guarantee in writing before the search starts, and make sure they do not change after you see candidates. At Galileo Search the fee is agreed on the brief and every permanent placement carries a 90-day replacement guarantee; we do not publish a standard percentage because a confidential Chief AI Officer search and a senior engineer hire are different pieces of work.
Where Galileo Search fits, honestly
Galileo Search is a Sydney-based AI recruitment agency and executive search firm that works only AI leadership and the AI team that follows it: Heads of AI, Chief AI Officers and AI Transformation Leads first, then engineers, architects and governance specialists, permanent and contract. We are a good fit when the seat is senior, the pool is passive and the cost of a wrong hire is a stalled AI program.
We are not the right firm for high-volume IT roles, general software development or non-AI technology hiring, where a large generalist agency will have a deeper bench. If you are not sure which you need, the salary guide and the live benchmarking tool are free, and a 30-minute brief costs nothing.
Frequently asked questions
- Is it worth using a recruitment agency to hire AI roles?
- For senior and specialist AI seats, usually yes, because the people you need are employed and not reading ads. For roles that attract strong direct applicants, advertise first. The signal to bring in a specialist is a flood of applicants who do not fit, or silence from the people who do.
- How much does an executive headhunter cost in Australia?
- Executive search in Australia is usually charged as a fee tied to the first-year package, paid on success or partly retained up front. Get the fee and the replacement guarantee in writing before the search starts. Galileo Search agrees its fee on the brief and gives a 90-day replacement guarantee on every permanent placement.
- What is the difference between an AI recruitment agency and an agency that uses AI?
- An AI recruitment agency recruits AI talent: Heads of AI, AI engineers, architects and governance specialists. An agency that uses AI applies AI tools to screen applicants for any kind of role. If you are hiring AI people, ask what the firm placed last quarter.
- What questions should I ask an AI recruiter?
- Ask what they placed in this seat family in the last year, where the shortlist will come from, how they assess AI capability, what the role pays and from what data, the fee and guarantee in writing, whether they are working the role on contingency with other agencies, how confidentiality is handled, and which cloud stack pools they search.