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Robert Half In-Depth Review

Considering recruiting locally or overseas? Here we give my honest take on Robert Half, it’s key services and pros and cons compared to other providers.

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Robert Half Review Summary

Robert Half
5 star icon

Score 9 out of 10

Currency

100+

Monthly fees

Not disclosed

Payment options

ACH/SWIFT

Robert Half is a leading global recruitment agency and consulting firm, renowned for its extensive expertise in hiring across various sectors. Specializing in fields such as accounting and finance, IT, human resources, marketing, creative roles, and legal positions, Robert Half caters to diverse staffing needs. The agency offers a range of recruitment services, including permanent, temporary, and remote worker placements.

Robert Half Company Overview

Robert Half is one of the world’s largest recruiting firms and its founder. Bob and Maxine Half founded the company in 1948 in New York to provide temporary staffing solutions for accountancy offices and personnel for all kinds of businesses. Since that time, the company has expanded all over the US, ad the world, and changed its headquarters to California. It now has over 16,000 employees, offices in more than 400 locations, and a current valuation of $7.2 billion. Robert Half focuses on staffing solutions for accounting and finance firms in particular but also offers support for technology, administration, customer service, creative, marketing, and legal professions.

Robert Half: Discover skilled candidates and in-demand jobs for optimal hiring solutions.
Discover skilled candidates and in-demand jobs with Robert Half

If your company is looking for workers, this recruitment agency can help you find trained and experienced professionals. Robert Half can help you find temporary, contract staff, or permanent full-time hires to help fulfill your needs. This agency also provides consulting services in many areas like HR, IT, legal, and operations to help businesses navigate issues surrounding growth.

In this review, we’ll look in detail at Robert Half’s offerings and what its key features are to help you decide if it’s the right partner for you to work with.

How Robert Half Works

Robert Half provides recruitment for both on-site and remote workers and focuses on specialized professional skills needed for a specific set of industries. As a large global company, it has an extensive network of candidates in its talent pools which makes it very quick to fill job openings when needed. You can hire for temporary positions as short as one day or look for full-time, permanent employees.

You’ll first need to plan the position you need to fill. You can do this by considering the main responsibilities of that role and the requirements and qualifications you believe the successful candidate should possess. While you can do this on your own, you can also contact a hiring specialist to consult with. You can contact Robert Half by phone or live chat, or you can fill out tits online form to give its hiring specialist more information about your business. Alternatively, you can visit one of its over 400 offices globally to meet directly with a specialist who will assess your hiring needs. When you engage its services, Robert Half will actively search its talent pools for you to find potential candidates who match your criteria.

At the same time, job seekers can sign up to Robert Half and post their credentials and resumes plus the types of jobs they’re looking for. Companies can use Robert Half’s online system to actively search for candidates on their own. This system uses AI screening to match companies with job seekers effectively. 

When matches are made, and you approve of the applicants who’ve been suggested, Robert Half arranges interviews for you. When you select your candidate, it also helps both parties negotiate salary and contract terms so you can conclude a contract. The agency charges a fee for its services either as a single fee for a permanent placement or through ongoing billing for temporary staff.

Robert Half Key Features

Robert Half is an international recruitment service provider with over 400 offices worldwide. The key features of its services include:

1. Robert Half Professional Sector Focus

While some recruitment agencies are general, hiring any kind of worker for any kind of position, Robert Half specializes in certain professional areas and industries. It began as a general recruiter, which also had a special focus on accounting, and this remains a strong part of its service provision today. Robert Half specializes in:

  • Accounting and finance: The agency provides screened applicants with experience and qualifications in accounting, financial planning and analysis, optimization, business process improvement, governance and compliance, and taxation.
  • Technology: Robert Half can help you find experts in software engineering, application development, IT operations, networking and infrastructure, security, data analysis and design, and governance. Applicants are pre-screened and can take online skills assessments to authenticate their qualifications. 
  • Marketing and creative: You can find both temporary and permanent workers with experience in digital project management, marketing, design and production, content creation and strategy, branding, communications, and media relations.
  • Administrative and customer support: Robert Half has talent pools including professionals in the areas of call center management and support, office and project management, office support, and HR.
  • Legal: Legal talent can be obtained for law firms and corporations, including paralegals, associates, in-house counsel, litigation and investigation, contracts, legal risk and compliance, information governance, and data protection.

2. Robert Half Temporary Staffing Services

In addition to helping clients fill their full-time, permanent positions, Robert Half also provides temporary staffing solutions. Key features of their service include:

  • Quick Access to Candidates: You can look for pre-screened applicants quickly, with an AI-powered search function that offers well-matched returns based on your job type and location.

  • Interview Assistance: The agency can assist in interviewing candidates and will negotiate directly with you regarding their salaries, which include Robert Half’s commission.

  • Temporary Placement Details

    • Temporary placements are billed on a daily basis, with workers logging their hours directly with Robert Half.
    • You pay a commission on each hour worked as a percentage added to the worker’s wage.
  • Remote Staffing Options: Robert Half offers remote temporary placements, enabling employers to find employees who can start quickly from anywhere.

  • Security Solutions

    • If security is a concern, the agency can set up virtual environments using VPNs for safe access to your systems and files.
    • You can also implement your own security system for greater control.
  • Fast Onboarding: Off-site workers can be hired and onboarded quickly, often within a few days, allowing them to work for you from any location. Payment is processed through Robert Half, treating them as independent contractors and managing their international payment transfers.

  • Flexibility with Permanent Staff: If your hire doesn’t work out, you can try another candidate at no extra charge.

3. Robert Half Consulting

Robert Half runs a consulting service through its fully-owned subsidiary, Protiviti. This service lets clients leverage expert knowledge and experience in the areas of technology, finance, accounting, operations, HR, marketing, and customer experience, as well as risk, audit, and compliance. You can gain help with process and technology implementation, workforce building, future planning, as well as operations optimization through this service.

4. Robert Half Global Reach

While its main focus is on the US market, Robert Half has over 400 offices across the Asia Pacific region, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America. In each country where the agency works, it supports local hiring for permanent and temporary positions, but it can also coordinate remote employment arrangements. This means you can connect to a deep talent pool of millions of international workers. 

5. Robert Half Platform

Most of Robert Half’s functions are performed through its website, forms, and private communications via phone and email. This agency also uses a mobile app for both Android and iOS devices called Robert Half: Job Search & More, which, as you can tell, is geared toward employees. It helps them post their resumes, search for job opportunities, and manage interviews. When they’re working as temporary workers, it helps them directly log their hours and submit time reports for their wage calculations.

Robert Hall’s systems are externally audited regularly and compliant with SOC 2 controls as well as being ISO 27001 certified. This shows the integrity of the company’s financial reporting and data security measures.

6. Robert Half Resources

In addition to recruitment and consulting services, Robert Half also provides useful resources to its employees and potential clients. These currently include a salary guide focusing on national trends in salaries, benefits, and perks, a demand for skilled talent report, an ebook on tech hiring strategies, and a guide to job searching strategies. 

Robert Half resource library
Research and insights from Robert Half's industry experts to support business transformation and career growth.

Robert Half Reviews

The average scores (as of the time of writing) were:

Robert Half Pricing 

Like many competitors in the recruitment services industry, Robert Half chooses not to post its prices online. This is largely due to the variability in price based on position type, qualifications, and length of engagement. However, agencies like this usually charge out staffing services at 70-75% of a worker’s hourly wage on top of that wage.

In other words, if the worker charges $20/hour, the agency would bill you for $35/hour to cover its fees and the worker’s wages. This fee is assessed continuously for as long as you employ the worker.

A full-time permanent position is different. When you hire a permanent employee, Robert Half charges a one-time recruitment fee as a percentage of the worker’s first year of salary. Again Robert Half, does not disclose the amount, but in the industry this is usually 30-35%.

For client companies after more cost-effective hiring solutions Remote People, RemotelyTalents and Near are worth considering. 

Robert Half Pros and Cons

Longevity and experience

This company has been in business since 1948 and has built up extensive expertise in recruiting and temporary staffing.

Targeted industries

If you’re recruiting for the specific areas that Robert Half works in, you can easily find qualified and experienced candidates for your open positions.

Huge talent pool

This agency boasts a talent pool of millions of pre-screened, skilled applicants. It now uses AI to connect them with the needs of its clients.

International hiring

Working all over the globe, this agency gives you access to professionals who can work remotely from anywhere.

Award-winning service

Robert Half has won numerous awards and has been named as a top recruitment agency by multiple reviewers.

Limited industries

While other competitors offer recruitment in more or perhaps all industries, Robert Half has a small area of specialist focus. This means it may not be appropriate for all of your hiring needs at once, and you may need to work with a second provider.

High prices

Robert Half is known for lots of customer contact and high-touch service. However, this also means its prices are higher than those of many competitors.

Robert Half Unique Selling Point

Robert Half’s unique selling point is its specialization in a few key industries. With over half a century of experience working in accounting and finance, this agency is also a key recruiter for IT, HR, creative, marketing, and legal positions. It specifically attracts professionals in these industries, screens and skill-tests them, and even provides related consulting services leveraging the experts in its talent pools.

RemotePeople Score for Robert Half

9/10

Our expert score for Robert Half

Our team came to this score by considering the following components in the following weightings:

Talent Acquisition features

25%

RPO features

10%

HR features

10%

Compliance features

10%

Platform features

10%

Pricing

20%

User reviews

15%

For each component, Robert Half received the following score:

Talent Acquisition features

24/25

RPO features

10/10

HR features

10/10

Compliance features

10/10

Platform features

10/10

Pricing

15/20

User reviews

11/15

Robert Half — 2025 Service Update

Robert Half continues to innovate, introducing a range of AI and machine learning tools into its recruitment processes in 2025. According to Robert Half, they use “machine learning and proprietary data to enhance the recruitment process by creating real-time candidate shortlists, efficiently matching candidates to client needs and optimizing client outreach.”

In recognition of this innovative approach, Robert Half was awarded the Fortune’s 2025 America’s Most Innovative Companies and made a winner of the 2025 CIO 100 Award

Other awards Robert Half has garnered in 2025 include: 

  • No. 1 on Forbes List of America’s Best Professional Recruiting Firms 2025, recognizing their strength in professional services hiring
  • Inclusion in Fortune’s Top 100 Companies to Work For rankings in 2025
  • Inclusion in Staffing Industry Analysts’ 2025 North America Staffing 100, recognising their strength as a leading staffing agency as well as recruiter.

Robert Half — Our Take

Robert Half is a great choice for companies looking to hire in the accounting and finance fields or who are looking for expertise in IT, legal, HR, customer services, and marketing. While this agency’s fees may be higher than the competition’s, it provides high-touch service and extra support to ensure that clients find the skilled temporary or permanent workers they need.

To find out more about which recruitment agency might suit you, check out our guide to the top global recruitment firms

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