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Fatwa CenterCommission for Working as a Job Recruiter
Question
Assalamualaikum,I want to know if my job is halal. I am a recruiter. My job is to find candidates looking for a job/change and qualify them, and then find a client who is hiring people and to connect the two. Sometimes I find currently employed individuals and try to get them to change jobs, or seeing if they're interested in changing a job by offering incentives that the client has.Part of the job involves haggling (negotiating pay with both clients and candidates) and this gets heated sometimes. The way we recruiters get paid is by getting the candidate to take say $60/hr, and then charging the client $90/hr and we take the $30 margin. Neither the client nor the candidate know our margin for connecting the deal. I have to admit that some people who do this job have to lie in order to close deals, but I alhamdullilah have noticed this and have ceased it and am doing better at this. Some lies they say are that there are other candidates interviewing and are at a lower pay rate in order to convince candidates to go lower on the pay they would get, or to say that we have the client at only $60 when we are charging them $90. So I have done better to avoid this. They do drink alcohol at this job, but I avoid it and they know I don't drink, there are also men and women mixing, but I sit at a table in the corner so there is only one man next to me, but at the end of the table there is a woman. The job involves me sending many messages/emails and making many phone calls to both men and women to negotiate deals. One part of the job I do not like and I do not do this often, but we ask candidates if they are interviewing else where, and if they say yes, we ask them with who, and if they tell us then we go to those people and try to introduce our candidates to interview as well. Jazakallah Khayran.wa salam.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
Your question included some matters and we will summarize our answer to them as follows:
Firstly, it is permissible for one to work as a broker between those who are looking for a job and those who are looking for employees. The broker may take his commission from both parties or from one of them only according to they agree on. However, the party from whom the commission is taken must be aware of it, and taking it without their knowledge is not permissible.
Thus, if you tell the job applicant that the salary is 60/hour and tell the employer that the salary of the employee to pay 90/hour, so that you take the 30, then this is not permissible. Nonetheless, you may ask for a commission to be taken from the job applicant or the employer or from both of them if you agreed with them on this matter.
Secondly, it is not permissible to help a consumer of intoxicants (alcohol or wine), in his work, by preparing the place for him, or the drink, tools, or anything else. Worse than all of this, is to do that with the intention of tricking the person to get what he wants after he gets drunk, all this is sin and darkness upon darkness.
Rather, a person has to take the legitimate means in order to get lawful earnings and Allah will facilitate that for him.
Thirdly, inducing employees during the period of the contract to leave their jobs and move to another one just in order to get a commission from them [for doing this] is not permissible, because it takes the same ruling of selling a product to a person [with a smaller price] after he has already bought it from another person, or offering a lower price to a product after another person has already offered a price to him [and there was an agreement between the two]. As stated by Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah 
.
Allah knows best.
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