What do Randstad and Robert Half charge for a placement?

Neither publishes fees. US buyers report roughly 20 to 30% of first-year salary for professional permanent placements at Robert Half, 18 to 28% at Randstad, and 40 to 60% markups on temporary staff at both. Hyring publishes a flat 7% in India and 14% in the US.

Which is better for finance and accounting hiring?

Robert Half, and it is not close. Finance and accounting is its founding specialism, with dedicated divisions and consultants who place controllers and accountants daily. Randstad covers finance as one professional line among many. For fee-sensitive finance hiring, Hyring places the same roles at a flat 14% with AI-screened shortlists.

Which is better for temp and volume staffing?

Randstad. Industrial, logistics, admin, and contact-center volume is its core engine worldwide. Robert Half's temporary lines are strong but concentrated in finance, accounting, admin, and legal professional roles.

Does Robert Half do technology staffing?

Yes, Robert Half Technology places IT contractors and perm tech roles, though it is smaller than dedicated tech staffing brands. For technology hiring specifically, compare against tech-first options, including Hyring's AI-screened tech shortlists delivered in 48 to 72 hours with coding scores attached.

How fast can I get candidates from each firm?

Consultant-led shortlists typically take one to three weeks at both firms depending on role and market. Hyring delivers AI-screened shortlists with interview recordings and calibrated scores in 48 to 72 hours because screening starts the day candidates apply.

Can finance roles be staffed remotely from India?

Many can. Accounts payable, receivable, FP&A support, bookkeeping, and reporting run well remotely. Hyring employs the team in India, handles payroll and compliance, screens everyone with AI interviews including an English proficiency test, and runs engagements on Insight by Hyring for transparent time tracking.

How is Hyring different from Randstad and Robert Half?

Hyring is an AI-native recruitment agency with flat, published fees: 7% of CTC in India and 14% in the US and rest of world. Every candidate passes AI screening backed by 900,000+ interviews, thousands of recruiting partners work each role, and clients get a live portal with Insight time tracking on augmented teams. Book a call to price your open roles.

Agency Comparison

Randstad vs Robert Half: Which Staffing Firm Fits Your Hiring in 2026?

The world's largest staffing firm against the finance-and-accounting specialist. Volume versus depth, percentage fees versus flat fees, and the three-column math US employers should run before signing either agreement.

Last updated on: July 6, 2026Read time: 11 mins

Written byAdithyan RKFact checked bySurya N

$27B

Randstad revenue, world #1

$5.4B

Robert Half revenue, finance #1

7% / 14%

Hyring flat fee, India / rest of world

48–72h

Hyring AI-screened shortlist

On paper this is a mismatch. Randstad is the largest staffing company in the world, roughly $27 billion in revenue and 1.7 million placements a year. Robert Half is a fifth that size. Yet in the niche Robert Half founded, finance and accounting recruitment, the smaller firm is the incumbent and the giant is the challenger. Which one fits depends entirely on what you are hiring.

Hyring holds the third column here. We are an AI-native recruitment agency with teams in the US, India, and Dubai, and unlike either firm on this page, our fee is printed on our website. That single difference reshapes the comparison more than the size gap does, and we will show the math rather than assert it.

Quick Verdict

Robert Half wins US finance and accounting depth, Randstad wins volume and multi-category scale, and Hyring wins fee, speed, and portal visibility.

Pick Robert Half

When the hire is a controller, senior accountant, or FP&A lead and you want the deepest specialist bench in that exact niche.

Pick Randstad

When you need workforce scale: industrial, logistics, admin, or hundreds of temps across regions under one program.

Pick Hyring

When fee and speed decide. Flat 14% US, 7% India, AI-screened shortlists in 48 to 72 hours, and remote finance teams at India cost levels.

Who Are Randstad and Robert Half?

Randstad is the world's largest staffing firm across all categories; Robert Half is the specialist leader in finance, accounting, and professional staffing.

Randstad's engine is breadth. Warehouse shifts in Rotterdam, contact centers in Atlanta, professional placements through its specialist lines, and enterprise programs through Randstad Enterprise. Seven consecutive years at number one globally is not an accident; it is logistics mastery applied to people.

Robert Half built the opposite machine. Six specialized divisions, finance and accounting first among them, 300+ locations, seven straight years as the top-ranked professional recruiting firm in Forbes surveys, and Protiviti bolted on for consulting. A Robert Half consultant who calls about your tax manager opening has likely placed dozens of tax managers. Depth is the product.

Neither publishes what that product costs. Both invoice like it is 2005. The next section is the part their websites skip.

What Do Randstad and Robert Half Fees Look Like?

US buyers report 18 to 30% permanent placement fees and 40 to 60% temp markups across both firms, against Hyring's published flat 14%.

Permanent placement: roughly 20 to 30% of first-year salary at Robert Half, with senior finance roles at the top of the band; 18 to 28% at Randstad's professional lines.
Temporary staffing: markups of 40 to 60% on the worker's pay rate at both, with Randstad volume programs negotiable.
Contract-to-hire conversions: prorated fees that can approach a full placement fee if you convert early. Read that clause twice.

The Hyring fee is public: 7% of CTC for direct hire in India, 14% flat in the US and everywhere else. A $115,000 senior accountant costs $16,100 to place instead of $23,000 to $34,500. Multiply across a finance team build-out and the difference funds another hire.

Perm fee on a $115,000 US senior accountant

Competitor figures are typical reported ranges; Hyring fee is published

Benchmark the salary before the fee: our free salary data covers 93 finance and professional roles across major markets.

Full Comparison Table: Randstad vs Robert Half vs Hyring

The firms split on scale versus specialism, fee transparency, screening method, and what the client can see while the search runs.

Head-to-head across eleven buying criteria
Criteria	Randstad	Robert Half	Hyring
Scale	World's largest, ~$27B revenue	~$5.4B, 300+ locations	AI-native agency, US, India, UAE hubs
Core strength	Volume and multi-category staffing	Finance, accounting, legal recruitment	Flat-fee direct hire, staff augmentation, RPO
Perm fee	~18–28% (typical)	~20–30% (typical)	7% India, 14% US, flat and published
Temp pricing	~40–60% markup, volume deals	~40–60% markup (typical)	~30% below big-firm quotes
Finance & accounting depth	One professional line among many	Founding specialism, dedicated divisions	Finance hiring with AI screening and flat fees
Tech hiring	Randstad Digital	Robert Half Technology	AI coding interviews on every tech candidate
Remote India option	Delivery centers inside programs	Limited	Core model, payroll and compliance handled
Screening	Recruiter screens, enterprise assessments	Consultant interviews, references	AI video, phone, and English screening on every candidate
Time-to-shortlist	One to three weeks	One to three weeks	48–72 hours for most roles
Client visibility	Account teams, MSP dashboards	Consultant updates	Live portal, plus Insight time tracking post-hire
Best for	Contingent workforce scale	US finance and accounting depth	Fee-sensitive professional and finance hiring

Finance and Accounting: The Specialist Premium, Examined

Robert Half's finance depth is real, and so is the premium; AI-screened flat-fee hiring covers the same roles at roughly half the typical fee.

Credit where due: for a confidential CFO-adjacent search or a controller who must land in thirty days, Robert Half's bench is the safest single call in the US market, and the premium buys real pattern recognition.

Below that tier, the premium gets harder to justify. Staff accountants, AP and AR leads, analysts, payroll specialists: these are well-defined roles with testable skills, exactly what AI screening handles best. Our AI Video Interviewer runs scenario questions built from real controller and FP&A hiring rubrics, the AI Resume Screener ranks the full applicant pool, and an English proficiency test covers client-facing roles. You review calibrated scores and recordings in the portal, not a consultant's adjectives, and pay 14% instead of the high twenties.

And for finance functions that can run remotely, AP, AR, bookkeeping, reporting, FP&A support, a dedicated team in India through our RPO or staff augmentation typically costs 60 to 70% less than US equivalents, with Insight by Hyring keeping every hour transparent to both sides.

Volume, Temp, and the Remote Middle Path

Randstad owns physical volume staffing, while remote-capable admin and support volume increasingly routes to India-based teams at lower cost.

Warehouse shifts, plant floors, and on-site contact centers are Randstad's world and will remain so; no remote model fills a forklift seat. The interesting shift is in remote-capable volume: customer support, back-office processing, data operations, collections. Those queues staff well from India, and our AI Phone Screener exists precisely for that funnel, screening hundreds of applicants a day on communication and role fit before humans review the top of the list.

Candidates arrive through the Hyring Jobs portal and the Recruiting Partners network, thousands of independent recruiters compensated on placements. Serious applicants prep with the free Jobseeker Toolkit and the interview questions library, so the funnel filters for motivation before it filters for skill.

Screening and Visibility: What You See Before You Pay

Consultant firms show you a curated shortlist; portal-based AI screening shows you the evidence behind every name on it.

With either incumbent, the shortlist is the product and the process is a black box. You see five resumes and a consultant's summary. With Hyring, the portal shows the funnel itself: how many applied, how the AI Resume Screener ranked them, interview recordings, scores, and where each candidate sits. Procurement teams reviewing AI screening for the first time usually start with the explainers in our Learn hub and the definitions in the HR Glossary; both were written for exactly that vendor-review conversation. The platform runs under SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications, Insight included.

STEP 1

Brief the role

Send your JD or adapt one from 900+ templates in the JD library. Intake call within 24 hours.

STEP 2

AI screens the pool

Portal applicants and partner submissions pass video, phone, and skills screening automatically.

STEP 3

Review in the portal

Watch recordings, compare calibrated scores, shortlist in 48 to 72 hours.

STEP 4

Hire flat-fee

14% US, 7% India. Augmented teams run on Insight for transparent tracking.

Which One Should You Pick?

Pick Robert Half for senior finance depth, Randstad for physical volume scale, and Hyring when fee, speed, and evidence-based screening decide.

The senior confidential finance search goes to Robert Half; that is what the premium is for. The thousand-temp industrial program goes to Randstad; nobody else runs that machinery as well. Everything in between, staff-level finance, professional roles, remote-capable support volume, deserves a third quote before you sign a percentage agreement.

One role, briefed to us in parallel, settles it inside a week with your own data. If the specialist premium turns out to be worth it for your role, you will know that too, and it will have cost you one phone call to find out.

Written by

Adithyan RK

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CEO & Co-founder, Hyring

18+ years of experience

Adithyan RK is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hyring, an AI-native recruitment platform that has run over 900,000 AI interviews for companies ranging from early-stage startups to the Fortune 500. He has spent 18 years building technology businesses, starting with a digital consultancy in 2008 and a staff augmentation firm in 2017, before founding Hyring in 2022 to rebuild hiring around evidence instead of guesswork. Read more

Expertise

AI RecruitmentAI InterviewsRecruitment AutomationHR TechnologyHiring AnalyticsApplicant TrackingRecruiter Operations

Fact checked by

Surya N

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CTO & Co-founder, Hyring

6+ years of experience

Surya N is the Co-Founder and CTO of Hyring, where he architected the AI interviewing engine that has now conducted over 900,000 interviews for companies ranging from early-stage startups to the Fortune 500. A mechanical engineer who moved into artificial intelligence, he spent 6 years building AI applications inside a technology consultancy before co-founding Hyring, and wrote the first version of its AI interviewer from scratch. Read more

Expertise

AI Interview SystemsConversational AIInterview Fraud DetectionPlatform ArchitectureMachine Learning EngineeringApplied AISpeech and Voice AIBias Testing and Model Evaluation

Get the flat-fee quote before you sign the percentage

Brief us the role you were about to send to Randstad or Robert Half. Within 72 hours you get a fee comparison, an AI-screened shortlist sample with recordings and scores, and portal access to judge the process yourself. No commitment.

FAQs

Randstad is much larger, roughly $27 billion in revenue as the world's largest staffing firm, placing 1.7 million people a year. Robert Half is about $5.4 billion but is the clear leader in finance and accounting recruitment, with 300+ locations and the Protiviti consulting arm.