Pointer Strategy vs Hays: Sales Recruitment Compared (2026)

Pointer Strategy vs Hays: Sales Recruitment Compared (2026)

Hays is Australia's largest recruitment firm. Pointer Strategy is a specialist GTM recruiter. Both place salespeople, but the models, incentives, and post-placement experience are fundamentally different.

If you're evaluating agencies for a sales hire, this comparison will help you understand what you're actually getting from each one and where the trade-offs sit.

For a broader overview including Robert Half, Hudson, Michael Page, and others, see our full agency comparison guide.

Quick Comparison

The Fee Model: Where the Real Difference Lives

This is the single biggest difference and it shapes everything else.

Hays operates on a standard contingency model. You pay 15 to 20% of the hire's base salary when they accept the offer. For a $120,000 base AE role, that's $18,000 to $24,000 upfront. The fee is due regardless of how that hire performs in month one, month three, or month six.

Pointer charges 1.5% of salary per month, billed only while the hire is performing. For that same $120K role, that's $1,800 per month. If the hire doesn't work out in month two, billing stops. Total cost: $3,600 instead of $24,000.

This isn't just a pricing difference. It's a structural difference in incentives. Contingency agencies earn their fee by placing someone. Pay-on-performance agencies earn their fee by placing someone who stays and performs. Those are very different incentives.

What a [bad hire](/blog/bad-hire-cost) actually costs:

With pay-on-performance, the recruitment cost component of that equation drops to whatever months the hire actually worked. Your agency has skin in the game from day one.

Specialisation: Generalist Scale vs Specialist Depth

Hays is Australia's largest specialist recruiter, but "specialist" here means they have specialist divisions across 20+ disciplines. Sales sits alongside IT, accounting, construction, HR, legal, engineering, and more. Their sales desk recruits BDMs, Account Managers, AEs, Sales Managers, and Sales Directors.

What this means in practice: your recruiter may be excellent, or they may be a 24-year-old generalist who moved from the accounting desk six months ago. With 729 consultants across ANZ, quality varies significantly by office and individual. Glassdoor reviews from Hays employees consistently mention KPI pressure and a volume-driven culture.

Pointer recruits exclusively for B2B SaaS and technology go-to-market teams. That means sales, marketing, customer success, partnerships, enablement, and GTM engineering. Nothing else.

Pointer's consultants have carried quota themselves. When they assess a candidate, they're evaluating whether someone can actually run MEDDIC, build pipeline, manage a complex deal cycle, or ramp an SDR team. Not whether their CV has the right keywords.

This matters most for mid-senior roles. If you're hiring an Account Executive who needs to run enterprise deals, the recruiter's ability to evaluate sales methodology, deal management, and pipeline discipline is the difference between a good hire and a $100,000 mistake.

The Guarantee: What Actually Happens When Things Go Wrong

Hays offers a 3-month replacement guarantee. If the hire leaves or is terminated within 90 days, Hays will conduct a replacement search at no additional fee. The guarantee is conditional on paying the invoice within 14 days of the start date.

There are two things to understand about this model. First, it's a replacement search, not a refund. Your $20,000+ fee is gone. Second, you're asking the same agency that made the first placement to try again with the same process. If the methodology was flawed, the replacement process doesn't fix that.

Pointer's model doesn't need a guarantee in the traditional sense. Billing stops the moment the hire leaves. You've paid for the months they worked and nothing more. There's no sunk cost to recover, no replacement negotiation, no arguing about whether the termination was "your fault" or theirs.

The incentive structure also means Pointer is motivated to ensure the hire succeeds beyond month three. Every month the hire stays is another month of revenue. That's why every placement includes 12 months of training and enablement.

Post-Placement: Training vs Nothing

This is where the comparison gets stark.

Hays does not offer post-placement training, coaching, or onboarding support for permanent hires placed at client companies. Their temporary and contract workers get access to Hays Learning (via Go1), but permanent placements get the guarantee period and that's it.

Pointer includes 12 months of sales training and enablement with every placement. That covers live coaching sessions, MEDDIC and Challenger methodology reinforcement, peer learning networks across industries, and ongoing performance development. It's not a bolt-on or an upsell. It's built into the model.

Why does this matter? Because the first 6 months after placement are where hires succeed or fail. An AE who gets dropped into a new company with a "here's your territory, good luck" onboarding will take 6 to 9 months to ramp. An AE who gets structured training, methodology reinforcement, and coaching support can ramp in 3 to 4 months.

The Evotix case study is a good example. Three first-time BDRs placed by Pointer ranked #1, #2, and #4 globally out of 30 reps within two months. That doesn't happen without structured enablement alongside the placement.

When Hays Is the Right Choice

Hays is a strong option when:

When Pointer Is the Right Choice

Pointer is a strong option when:

The Numbers

Over a full year, the total cost can be similar. The difference is in the risk profile. With Hays, all the risk is front-loaded. With Pointer, the cost is spread and capped by performance.