---
title: Recruitment operations blog | Echo Recruit
description: "Long-form articles on running a recruitment desk: the handover problem, screening that holds up, contract margin, getting paid and duty of care."
---
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Resources
# Written for people running the desk
Five things that decide whether a desk runs well or badly — where work goes missing in a handover, whether a screening decision still makes sense six months later, how contract margin leaks, what a fee agreement needs to reach the invoice, and what you owe the people whose CVs you are holding.
No borrowed statistics and no made-up case studies. Where we use a number it is arithmetic you can redo with your own figures, and when the product comes up we say so.
The handover problemScreening that holds upThe contract deskGetting paidDuty of care
**What we write about** New posts Tuesdays & Thursdays
### The handover problem
Nothing breaks in the middle of a tool. It breaks where one hands work to the next.
### Screening that holds up
Getting the pile down is easy. Explaining the decision six months later is not.
### The contract desk
The money is the gap between two rates, on hours somebody has to approve.
### Getting paid
An agreement that cannot reach the invoice is a document, not a contract.
### Duty of care
You hold other people’s CVs, their salaries and your clients’ commercial terms.
12 articles
## [15 Oct 2026 The contract desk Timesheet approval is a credit control problem Finance chases invoices. Nobody chases approvals. But the invoice was decided weeks earlier, by whether a manager clicked a button on a Monday. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/timesheet-approval-is-a-credit-control-problem?hsLang=en)
## [13 Oct 2026 Screening that holds up Two recruiters, one candidate: the duplicate problem The candidate has been called twice this week by the same agency about the same job, and both recruiters think they sourced them. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/two-recruiters-one-candidate-the-duplicate-problem?hsLang=en)
## [08 Oct 2026 The handover problem Six numbers that tell you the desk is healthy A number is worth reporting if a bad value would make you do something differently on Monday. By that test, most recruitment dashboards report almost nothing. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/six-numbers-that-tell-you-the-desk-is-healthy?hsLang=en)
## [06 Oct 2026 The contract desk The placement is not the finish line Your ATS marks them placed and stops caring. Your obligations to that person are about to run for another nine months. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/the-placement-is-not-the-finish-line?hsLang=en)
## [01 Oct 2026 Duty of care A subject access request arrives on a Friday “Please send me all the personal data you hold about me.” One sentence, no explanation required, and a clock starts. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/a-subject-access-request-arrives-on-a-friday?hsLang=en)
## [29 Sep 2026 Screening that holds up The intake call that decides the whole search A search that goes wrong usually went wrong in the first hour, and the first hour is the one nobody protects. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/the-intake-call-that-decides-the-whole-search?hsLang=en)
## [29 Sep 2026 Screening that holds up Eleven questions to ask before you let software rank candidates You are not evaluating whether the model is good. You are evaluating whether, eighteen months from now, you can reconstruct why a particular person did not get a call. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/eleven-questions-to-ask-before-you-let-software-rank-candidates?hsLang=en)
## [28 Sep 2026 The handover problem Five places a handover breaks Recruitment work is a relay. The baton drop happens at the exchange, not mid-stride. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/five-places-a-handover-breaks?hsLang=en)
## [28 Sep 2026 Getting paid A fee agreement that can't reach the invoice isn't an agreement Most fee disputes are not about the percentage. They are about what the percentage applies to, and that sentence is usually the vaguest one in the document. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/a-fee-agreement-that-cant-reach-the-invoice-isnt-an-agreement?hsLang=en)
## [24 Sep 2026 The handover problem The four times a staffing agency types the same fee One number, agreed once, typed four times by four people on four different days. The interesting question is not whether the copies drift — it is which copy reaches the client. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/the-four-times-a-staffing-agency-types-the-same-fee?hsLang=en)
## [21 Sep 2026 Screening that holds up Write the bar down before you read the first CV The bar exists on every role you work. The only question is whether it is written down or living in somebody’s head, moving quietly as the week gets harder. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/write-the-bar-down-before-you-read-the-first-cv?hsLang=en)
## [18 Sep 2026 Duty of care How long should you keep a CV? Every agency database has a long tail of people who would be surprised to learn they are in it. That tail is not an asset. It is a liability with a search box on it. Read the article](https://www.echorecruit.com/blog/how-long-should-you-keep-a-cv?hsLang=en)
## Reading about it only gets you so far
Bring a live vacancy and a real client fee agreement. Twenty minutes is enough to see whether the retyping actually stops on your desk.
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