Credit: The Recruiting Animal Show

1. Rich's Rule - If the client is un-cooperative walk away.

If the hiring manager won't clarify the brief, won't give feedback, won't align on salary, or won't commit to a process - you don't have a search. You have a time sink.

2. Tom's Cold Call Rule - Call until one of you dies.

Pipeline is oxygen. Most recruiters quit after one attempt. Top billers don't.

3. Priya's Resume Rule - If in doubt, throw it ou...

Agency owners allowing junior recruiters to work remotely are setting them up to fail.

Not because remote work doesn't work, not because flexibility is bad, but because recruitment is not an entry-level job you can master in isolation.

This isn't a role that you "figure out as you go" from YouTube tutorials.

Recruitment is extremely nuanced, with many variables at play.

• It's knowing why a candidate who looks perfect on paper won't get the offer.
• It's hearing hesitation in a hiring ...

Top 10 CTAs - Business Development

1. Would it make sense to share a couple of profiles?
2. Open to a quick chat tomorrow?
3. Worth exploring how we could support your upcoming hiring plans?
4. Ok for me to send over a brief overview of our process?
5. Are you the right person to talk to?
6. Curious to see a shortlist example from a similar search?
7. Would a quick intro call be useful?
8. Are you currently open to new partnerships?
9. Is hiring for [job title] a priority?
10. If I sent a 2-m...

Boost your linkedin profile - independent recruiter edition

Let's preface this with a moment of truth.

This is what I see many successful recruiters doing to build their presence and generate leads on LinkedIn. This being said, I don’t do most of this myself, just because I cannot stand LinkedIn as a platform and the influencer hype.

I'm omitting some of the practices that I really can't get behind, such as:

• 3x follow up linkedin messages (follow ups should be multi-channel)
• Engagemen...

Most recruiters search where everyone else searches.

This, despite knowing that not all jobs are posted on job boards.

In fact, many companies rely exclusively on their ATS or careers page - meaning those roles never show up on LinkedIn, Indeed, or other aggregators. If you’re doing business development via ad calls, this gives you a serious edge as you get to find demand earlier and avoid overcrowded channels. Instead of searching job boards, search company websites directly using Boolean ...

Every cold candidate outreach has to serve multiple purposes.

Sure, the primary goal is to recruit the candidate, but that rarely happens on the first touch. Recruiters that think long-term and aren't purely transactional look to provide value and gather insights in every candidate interaction.

Here's a practical example of how a candidate and recruiter can exchange value, even when the interaction is clearly not headed towards a placement in the near foreseeable future:

Gather Candidate...

The catch is that the candidates have to be strong matches.

One of the things I was taught during training at a recruitment firm, was setting rules of engagement with clients before the search even starts.

I'm clear about this during the qualification conversation: they'll receive a tight shortlist of 3-5 candidates. They will likely want to meet all of them. If none get an offer, we need to requalify the position.

Why presenting less candidates works

• Clients move faster when they know ...

Always start with the retainer - though I actually call it an engagement fee, "Retainer" sounds scary.

If you hit a wall selling the engagement fee, you can still take the search on contingency - but strategically.

Stuck selling retainer? Try framing it like this:

I completely understand the hesitation around an engagement fee, especially since we haven’t worked together yet. That’s fair.

Here’s what I propose: we’ll take this search on contingency, but we’ll treat it exactly li...

Hi Talnet, as my first contribution, I would like to share a list of closing techniques that I've compiled about a decade ago. I believe these can serve agency recruiters pretty well.

1-2-3 close

Technique

Summarize in sets of three items. We will give you this, that and the other.

This may be features of the product, benefits or add-on sweetener items.

There are two ways to do this: they may either be closely related (to reinforce a single point) or ma...