Any recruiter who wants money to place you is incompetent at best and a scammer at worst.

To put this agreement in perspective, this recruiter has reduced their direct financial incentive to match you to the right company.

For a $80,000 a year job, they're looking at $16,000 for placing you. If they charge you 20% of that if you don't work out, that's $3200. If they spend 40 hours placing you, that's not a bad yearly income - if they just shotgun your resume, they can make real money.

And if the salary, fee, and your percentage are significantly higher, they can make really good money.

Run very far away from that. I've dealt with a bunch cold-calls from recruiters and I've never heard of anything like that. It's possible that it's even illegal (I don't think you can charge job seekers but this might skirt that) but IANAL.

I agree. It may be in a legal gray area.

Even if it was legal, I would run as fast as I could in the other direction. Think of it this way: what happens if you start the job and come to find out the company is into some shady business and you wanted to quit?

They emailed me the agreement, which they wanted back with my signature before an "in depth" discussion with them (another odd sign). It turned out to be worse than they let on: liability for the entire amount, with an additional 20% in case the fee has to be turned over to a collection agency. I replied in email that I was not interested in doing business with them and would not enter into any agreement.

One thing I neglected to mention to this recruiter: I free-lance as an expert witness in computer forensics cases. I've done this for a labor lawyer in the state where this firm operates. I will forward this "agreement" to the lawyer.

I'll answer my own question: a modicum of research shows that this is indeed a nonstandard practice. There must be a need for such a service, however. There probably are workplaces that benefit from coercive recruiting agreements that punish employee turnover.

No it is not standard