Recruitment Agencies in Europe, Country by Country

For a normal permanent or contract role in Western Europe, no. Agencies are paid by the employer, usually a percentage of the first-year salary, and that is the entire business model. If somebody asks you for a placement fee, a registration fee, a "visa processing" fee or money for a CV rewrite before they will talk to you, walk away. The exception people confuse it with is regulated overseas recruitment into specific sectors like nursing, where some legitimate programmes charge for language training. Even there, ask exactly what the money buys before you send any.

Less than people hope. Most agencies work on roles their client needs filled quickly, and a candidate who needs a visa and a relocation is slower than one who is already local. The ones worth your time are the sector specialists in shortage fields, engineering, IT, healthcare, where the client has already accepted they are hiring from abroad. Applying directly to a company that has said it sponsors is usually a better use of the same hour.

A large international recruiter like Hays or Michael Page covers many sectors and has volume. A specialist covers one field and usually knows it properly. A staffing or Zeitarbeit firm employs you itself and hires you out, which in Germany means a real contract with real protections but usually lower pay than being hired direct. Each has its place; the type column tells you which conversation you are walking into.

To register, usually not. To be placed, it depends entirely on the role their client is filling. An agency will happily take your CV in English and then have nothing to send you, which feels like being ignored but is really a language gap. Ask on the first call what share of their current roles are English-speaking. A good recruiter will tell you straight.