Hiring in an SME: recruitment agency, your own job ad or referrals — how to choose and which rules apply

In an SME with 10–100 employees, hiring is rarely done by a specialist: it is done by the owner, a team leader or the person who also handles the accounting. That is why choosing a channel is not only about “who finds the person” but also about who carries the risks: wasted time, a wrong choice, a job ad that breaks the law, candidates’ data and a contract signed a day too late.

Below you compare four channels — your own job ad, referrals, a recruitment agency and a temporary work agent —, see the rules that apply to every job ad and every CV, and walk through the steps from offer to the first day of work. You won’t find agency price lists here: there is no single market price, and figures without a source would mislead.

Four channels, four ways of sharing the risk

Channel	Who searches and selects	Who employs the person	When it makes sense	What to watch
Your own job ad	You	You	Many suitable candidates, time for interviews	Internal time, legality of the ad, GDPR for CVs
Referrals	Your employees, then you	You	Small teams where trust matters	Team uniformity, tax treatment of the bonus, equal rules
Recruitment agency	The agency, up to the shortlist	You	Rare roles, lack of time, discreet searches	Commercial terms, replacement guarantee, data
Temporary work agent	The agent	The agent (you are the “user”)	Peaks, replacements, tasks limited in time	Legal limits, your responsibilities

The channels can be combined: your own ad and referrals for everyday roles, an agency for the position that has stayed open for months, a temporary work agent for the season.

Your own job ad: control is yours, and so is the time

You write the requirements, you speak to the candidate first, you see for yourself what the market looks like for your role. You don’t pay an intermediary, but you pay in time: writing the ad, screening CVs, interviews, references, replies to those you reject. Start from the job description: the duties and requirements written there become the ad, and the selection criteria stay the same for every candidate.

You can also publish the ad with the county employment agency (AJOFM); according to the National Employment Agency (ANOFM), mediation for people looking for a job is free of charge. Whichever channel you choose, employers must notify the AJOFM of vacancies within 5 working days of the post becoming vacant (art. 10 para. 1 of Law no. 76/2002, through Annex 1A to the implementing norms) and, according to ANOFM, of the vacancy being filled, within one day (Annex 1B). Check with the AJOFM in your county how to submit them.

Employee referrals

They are usually a fast and cheap channel, and those who come this way already know someone in the team. It only works if your people are satisfied enough to recommend their workplace — see motivating employees. The risk: the team becomes uniform, and relatives or friends end up in the same reporting line. A few rules help:

• The same criteria for everyone. The referred person goes through the same interview as any other candidate.
• A bonus set in writing: when it is paid (for example after the newcomer’s probation period), who can receive it, whether there is a cap.
• Tax treatment. A bonus paid to an employee is salary income: the Fiscal Code looks at the employment relationship, not at what the payment is called (art. 76 para. 1), so tax and contributions apply as for any other bonus. If the referral comes from outside the company, the treatment is different — ask your accountant before promising an amount.
• The candidate’s data. You receive the CV from a third party, so you have the information duty under art. 14 GDPR (below).

The recruitment agency: when it is worth it

An agency does the searching: it looks beyond those who apply on their own, screens, gives you a shortlist and sometimes helps negotiate the offer. What you gain:

• time — screening and first conversations no longer go through your calendar;
• access to people who are not actively looking and would never answer a public ad;
• market knowledge — which salaries and benefits are common in your field;
• speed on roles that are hard to fill;
• discretion when replacing someone who is still in the job.

You keep the decision, the interviews with the team, the offer, the contract and REGES: the agency brings you the candidate, it does not hire in your place. It is usually worth it for rare or specialised roles, lack of time or a need for discretion; less so for entry-level or operational roles that draw many suitable candidates, or when you have time to do the selection yourself.

There is no tariff set by law. Compare offers on the same points:

• cost structure — a fee on a successful hire, an advance during the search or a combination; what it is calculated on and when it falls due;
• replacement guarantee — for how long, under what conditions (departure or termination during probation), what you get and what it does not cover;
• exclusivity — for how long, and what happens if you hire someone who was already in your own CV database;
• data — who is the controller for what, and how candidates are told that their profile is reaching you.

According to ANOFM, employment mediation can also be provided for a fee, by specialised providers accredited by ANOFM, and the national register of accredited providers is public. Check the agency there; if it does not appear, ask for a written explanation of the regime under which it operates. Note the limit too: people whose job is mediating between job seekers and employers must refuse discriminatory requests (art. 8 para. 3 of Government Ordinance no. 137/2000), but the rule on job ads (art. 8 para. 2) also applies when the ad is launched by the employer’s representative — including when an agency publishes it on your behalf. You cannot “order” a discriminatory shortlist and then blame the agency.

The temporary work agent: not the same as recruitment

A temporary work agent does not look for an employee for you: it places one of its own employees at your disposal. There are three parties — the agent (the employer), the temporary employee and you, the “user”. The rules are in the Labour Code, art. 88–102:

• The agent must be authorised by the Ministry of Labour (art. 88 para. 3), and the ministry publishes the national register of authorised agents every month. Check it before you sign.
• Only for a specific, temporary task (art. 89). A mission lasts at most 24 months and can be extended, without exceeding 36 months in total (art. 90). For a permanent role, you hire.
• The placement contract is in writing and includes, among other things, the duration, the characteristics of the role, the value of the agent’s commission, the employee’s pay and the conditions under which you may refuse an employee sent by the agent (art. 91 para. 2).
• The employer is the agent. The temporary work contract is between the agent and the employee (art. 94), and the agent pays the salary and remits the contributions (art. 96). The salary cannot be lower than that of one of your employees doing the same or similar work (art. 92 para. 3).
• You are responsible for working conditions (art. 98) and for protective equipment, unless the contract puts it on the agent (art. 92 para. 2). If the agent does not pay within 15 calendar days of the due date, you pay the salary, contributions and taxes due, at the employee’s request, and then step into the employee’s rights against the agent (subrogation, art. 96 para. 4–5).
• Hiring after the mission is free: a clause that forbids it is void (art. 91 para. 3), and the agent may not charge the employee any fees (art. 102).

Temporary work solves a peak in activity, a replacement or a season; it is not a way to keep someone “at the agent” indefinitely.

How to choose the channel

Three questions simplify the decision:

1. Is the role permanent or temporary? Temporary and well defined: a temporary work agent, or a fixed-term contract (allowed only in the cases listed in art. 83 of the Labour Code) with someone found through the other channels. Permanent: your own ad, referrals or an agency.
2. How many suitable candidates are within reach? Many, as with entry-level or operational roles: your own ad and referrals. Few: an agency.
3. What are you short of, money or time? A job ad costs time, an agency costs money and saves time, referrals cost a little of both but have a ceiling.

When you compare, add up your own and your team’s hours, the monthly cost of the empty seat, the fee and the risk of starting over if the person leaves during probation — and ask which guarantee covers the last point.

What every job ad must respect

No discrimination

The Labour Code prohibits direct or indirect discrimination on grounds such as sex, age, ethnicity, religion, disability, family situation or trade-union membership (art. 5). Two acts make this concrete for job ads:

• Government Ordinance no. 137/2000 (art. 8): making a post conditional, through an ad or a competition, on race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, social or disadvantaged category, beliefs, age, sex or sexual orientation is a contravention. The fine is from 1,000 to 30,000 lei or, if the discrimination targets a group, from 2,000 to 100,000 lei (art. 26 para. 1).
• Law no. 202/2002 (art. 9 para. 1 letter a): prohibits practices that disadvantage people of a given sex in advertising and selecting for posts. The fine is from 3,000 to 10,000 lei and is applied by labour inspectors (art. 37). Exception: a genuine and determining occupational requirement, proportionate (art. 9 para. 2).

Wording inherited from old ads — “young team”, “maximum age 35”, “lady for reception” — can be read as a condition based on age or sex. Describe instead what the person has to do and ask for skills, not a profile. At the interview, the information you ask for can serve no purpose other than assessing the ability to fill the post (art. 29 para. 3 of the Labour Code): questions about pregnancy or family plans have no place there, and pregnancy tests at hiring are prohibited (art. 27 para. 4; art. 10 para. 4 of Law 202/2002). On criminal records, see the separate article on the criminal record when hiring.

Pay transparency

Directive (EU) 2023/970 also applies to job applicants (art. 2 para. 3) and requires three things (art. 5):

• the candidate receives, before the interview (for example right in the ad), the initial pay level or pay range for the post, set on objective, gender-neutral criteria;
• the employer does not ask about the candidate’s pay history;
• job ads and job titles are gender-neutral.

The transposition deadline was 7 June 2026 (art. 34). At the time of publication, the Romanian law had not been adopted: legislative proposal L445/2026 had been registered in the Senate in June 2026, under the urgent procedure, and was with the Senate committees. The text as filed takes over the rules above and proposes fines of between 3 and 5 gross national minimum wages for failing to inform candidates and for asking about pay history, with enforcement by the territorial labour inspectorates; it may change before the final vote. The rest of the directive is covered in our article on pay transparency.

Until the law is adopted it is worth getting ready: set the salary range for the role before you publish the ad, use neutral job titles and take the question about current salary out of your interview script. Under the text of the directive, the prohibition concerns pay history, not a conversation about what the candidate wants for the new role.

What a job ad should contain

• the job title (neutral), place of work, working hours and type of contract;
• real duties and requirements, taken from the job description;
• the monthly gross salary range and benefits — the contract is concluded in gross terms, so if you promise a net figure, work out the gross with the gross-from-net salary calculator and check it with the net-from-gross one;
• the deadline, how to apply and a paragraph on what you do with candidates’ data.

Candidates’ CVs and GDPR

From the moment you receive a CV you are the controller for the data in it, whatever the channel. The general framework is in GDPR in HR; for recruitment, five things matter:

1. Inform the candidate. If the data comes directly from them, you tell them who the controller is, the purpose and legal basis, who receives the data, how long you keep it and what rights they have (art. 13 GDPR). If it comes from elsewhere — a referral, an agency, a profile on a professional network — the information duty still applies (art. 14) and must be met within a reasonable time, at most one month, or at the latest at the first communication with the person. A paragraph in the ad and a short information page are enough.
2. Legal basis. For the steps before a contract — assessment, interview, offer — the basis is, as a rule, taking steps at the person’s request before entering into a contract (art. 6 para. 1 letter b), not a ticked consent box.
3. Ask only for what you use. Data must be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary (art. 5 para. 1 letter c): at the CV stage you do not normally need a personal ID number or copies of documents — those are requested from the person you make an offer to (documents needed for hiring). The fact that a profile on a social network is public does not automatically give you the right to process it: you need a legal basis, you check only what is relevant to the job, and the candidate must know.
4. Decide how long you keep rejected CVs. The law sets no fixed period. GDPR requires keeping data no longer than necessary for the purpose (art. 5 para. 1 letter e), and the Romanian data protection authority (ANSPDCP) stated in its 2019 activity report that, absent special rules, for rejected candidates the purpose ends when the selection process is completed. Keeping data longer can rest on the employer’s legitimate interest, with prior information to the candidate and the chance to exercise their rights. You set a maximum period yourself, with reasons, and write it into the notice; one example of an interest you can argue is defending against a discrimination complaint, which can be filed with the anti-discrimination council (CNCD) within one year (art. 20 para. 1 of Ordinance 137/2000). For a “CV bank”, the cleanest way is to ask the candidate. Retention periods for employee documents are in our article on keeping personnel documents.
5. Protect the CVs and the decision. A CV sent to a manager’s personal email or left in a shared folder without access control is an incident waiting to happen. And if a tool screens candidates automatically, the person has the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing with a significant effect (art. 22): keep a human in the decision (AI in HR).

From “yes” to the first day of work

This is where many companies slip: not at choosing the candidate, but at the order of the steps that follow.

1. The offer. In writing, with the job title, place of work, working hours, type of contract, gross salary and, where relevant, the probation period. Before the contract, the employer informs the selected person about the essential clauses (art. 17). See the individual employment contract and the probation period.
2. The medical fitness certificate. A person can be hired only on the basis of a medical certificate declaring them fit for the work, and its absence makes the contract void (art. 27 para. 1–2). As an exception, a foreign employee may be hired without the certificate, but must obtain it by the day activity starts at the latest (art. 27 para. 6–7). The other documents: documents needed for hiring and occupational medicine.
3. The contract, in writing. In Romanian, at the latest the day before work starts (art. 16 para. 1); for a foreign employee, also in the language of their country of origin or an international language they understand (art. 16 para. 1⁹ — see hiring foreign workers). The law allows an advanced or qualified electronic signature (art. 16 para. 1¹) — check which type the tool you use provides.
4. REGES. The contract’s details are sent to the employee register also at the latest the day before work starts; otherwise it is undeclared work (art. 15¹ letter b). If someone starts on Monday, “the day before” is Sunday: close everything by Friday. Fines apply per person: 40,000 lei for someone put to work without a written contract (cap 1,000,000 lei) and 20,000 lei for not registering in REGES on time (cap 200,000 lei) — art. 260 para. 1 letters e and e¹. Details: undeclared work and REGES.
5. The first day. The job description handed over, the internal regulations and health and safety training. The other candidates get a reply, and their CVs are deleted or kept under the rule you wrote in the notice.

Where Workly helps once you have chosen the person

The individual employment contract is generated from the data entered at hiring (job title, schedule, contract type), with the occupation from the COR catalogue; the contract is downloaded as a PDF for signing, and the signed copy is kept in their digital file. The data for REGES comes from the same file; the REGES integration is in preparation, and until then the registration is done in the REGES-Online portal, at the latest on the day before work starts. The easiest way to see the full flow is in a demo.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a recruitment agency cost?

There is no tariff set by law; the price is negotiated and differs with the type of search. In practice you see a fee on a successful hire, an advance during the search or a combination. For temporary work, the placement contract must state the value of the agent’s commission (art. 91 para. 2 letter f). Ask for the offer in writing and compare the total cost, including the replacement guarantee.

Can I ask a candidate how much they earn at the moment?

Directive 2023/970 requires Member States to ban questions about pay history (art. 5 para. 2), and the proposal in the Senate takes over the ban. The Romanian law had not yet been adopted at the time of publication, so the ban did not yet carry a penalty of its own in Romania, but the direction is clear: the simplest thing is not to ask and to discuss what the candidate wants for your role.

Can I ask for a test or a practical trial before hiring?

Yes: the contract is concluded after prior verification of the candidate’s professional and personal aptitudes (art. 29 para. 1 of the Labour Code), and the way this is done is set by the collective agreement, the staff statute or the internal regulations (para. 2). Be careful with a “trial day”: if the person actually works for the company without a contract, the situation may be seen as putting someone to work without a written contract, that is, undeclared work (art. 15¹ letter a). Keep assessments short and free of real production, or conclude the contract first.

Can someone start on Monday and we sign the contract on the first day?

No. The contract must be concluded in writing and registered in REGES at the latest the day before work starts (art. 16 para. 1 and art. 15¹ letter b). Any day worked before that is undeclared work, with fines calculated for each person.

What is the difference between a temporary work agent and a fixed-term contract?

With a fixed-term contract you are the employer: your own contract, your own REGES registration, your own payroll. With work through an agent, the employer is the agent and you are the user: you pay the agent, and the agent pays the employee. You remain responsible for working conditions and, secondarily, for paying the salary, contributions and taxes if the agent fails to do so within 15 calendar days of the due date (art. 96 para. 4).

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Informational article, accurate at the date of publication. Not legal advice. The law transposing Directive 2023/970, fine amounts and deadlines may change through later legislation — always check the current version of the acts cited or consult a specialist.