You opened an email tonight for a Senior Java Developer role, six-month contract, rate listed as a range nobody will confirm. You asked the recruiter which bank it is. They did not answer. You asked why feedback takes two weeks. They shrugged. None of that is evasiveness. It is distance.
By the time a requisition reaches your inbox, it has already passed through three or four organizations, each one adding a markup and removing a little information. Understanding that chain will not get you a faster answer tonight, but it will stop you from taking the silence personally.
Here is the actual path a req travels, and what each stop explains about the rate, the delay, and the gaps in what your recruiter can tell you.
Step 1: The Client Builds a Business Case
Before any requisition exists, someone inside the client company has to justify spending money on a contractor instead of a full-time hire or existing staff. This usually means a hiring manager writing a business case, a budget owner signing off, and HR or procurement confirming headcount is approved for the fiscal year or project.
This step alone can take two to six weeks, sometimes longer if it crosses a budget cycle. It explains two things you will notice downstream:
- Why reqs often appear in waves at the start of a quarter or fiscal year.
- Why a posted rate range is usually fixed before any vendor sees it. The client approved a bill rate ceiling months earlier, and nobody in the chain below them can move it much.
Step 2: The MSP Posts the Requisition
Most mid-size and large companies route all contract hiring through a Managed Service Provider, or MSP. The MSP does not supply workers itself. It manages the vendor program, enforces compliance, and controls who gets to see the req at all. Think SAP Fieldglass, Beeline, or IQNavigator, the VMS platforms where every req, submission, and interview gets logged.
The MSP posts the requisition to its approved vendor list, sometimes a dozen staffing firms, sometimes over a hundred. This is the first markup layer. The MSP charges the client a program fee, often 1 to 3 percent of total spend, for running the vendor ecosystem.
This step explains why your recruiter cannot tell you the client's internal project name or team structure. The MSP contract usually prohibits vendors from contacting the client directly before an interview is scheduled. Your recruiter is reading a sanitized req, not a conversation with the hiring manager.
Step 3: Prime Vendors Compete for the Submission Window
Vendors with direct MSP access, called prime vendors or Tier 1 vendors, see the req first. They typically get a 24 to 72 hour window to submit candidates before the MSP opens it to a wider pool or lets it expire.
Prime vendors take their own markup, often 15 to 25 percent of the bill rate, to cover their overhead, compliance costs, and MSP program fees. If the prime vendor does not have a matching candidate in-house, they push the req down to sub-vendors in their own network, sometimes called Tier 2 or implementation partners.
Each hop adds a markup and shortens the clock. By the time a req reaches a Tier 3 recruiter, the submission deadline might be hours away, which is why you sometimes get a same-day request for your resume and a rushed ask for references.
Step 4: Sub-Vendor and Tier Recruiters Source You
This is where most early-career consultants actually enter the picture. A sub-vendor recruiter, often at a smaller shop or an independent 1099 recruiting desk, is working a req that already has two or three markups baked in above them. Their own margin has to come from what is left.
This explains a lot of what frustrates new consultants:
- The rate feels low because it is the remainder after three or four companies took their cut of a bill rate the client fixed months ago.
- Feedback is slow because your recruiter is waiting on their vendor, who is waiting on the prime vendor, who is waiting on the MSP, who is waiting on the hiring manager.
- Nobody can confirm the client name because MSP agreements often restrict disclosure until an interview is confirmed, partly to stop vendors from going around the process.
What Each Hop Costs: A Simplified Bill Rate Breakdown
Numbers vary by client, industry, and MSP program, but this is a realistic structure for a role with a 90 dollar per hour client bill rate.
| Layer | Typical Take | Remaining for Pay Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Client bill rate | 100 percent | 90.00 dollars/hr |
| MSP program fee | 2 percent | 88.20 dollars/hr |
| Prime vendor margin | 18 percent of remaining | 72.32 dollars/hr |
| Sub-vendor margin | 12 percent of remaining | 63.64 dollars/hr |
| Employer taxes and benefits load | approx. 10 to 12 percent | 56 to 57 dollars/hr take-home pay rate |
This is illustrative, not a guarantee, but it maps directly onto the chain above. Every layer between the client's budget approval and your offer letter is a real company with real overhead, not an arbitrary deduction.
Why This Matters When You Are Evaluating an Offer
Knowing the chain changes what questions are worth asking. Instead of asking a recruiter to name the client before an interview is confirmed, ask who the prime vendor is and how many submission slots are left. Instead of asking why the rate is what it is, ask whether it is negotiable within the MSP's approved range or fixed by the client's budget.
A recruiter who can answer those questions clearly, even briefly, is usually closer to the top of the chain, which often means faster feedback and fewer surprises later.
A Quick Checklist Before You Submit Your Resume
- Ask which VMS platform the req is posted on. A real answer signals a legitimate MSP-managed process.
- Ask whether the recruiter is prime vendor or sub-vendor on this specific req, not just in general.
- Ask the submission deadline. If it is same-day, your resume is likely going in at the last possible hop.
- Confirm who issues the W-2 or 1099, since this tells you who you are actually contracting with.
- Do not expect the client name before an interview is scheduled. This is normal MSP policy, not evasiveness.
If you want help making sense of a specific req, or you are trying to figure out where you sit in a particular chain, the team at Josh Pros LLC is glad to talk it through. Reach out at contact@joshpros.com or visit https://joshpros.com.
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