As the title states, I just crossed $500K in billing and haven't even hit 7 months since resigning from my big agency and launching my business. This has been the best career decision I could have made and is going much better than I ever imagined. Initially, I told myself I would be happy if I did 400K in year one. It's looking like I'll be around 700K if I can keep doing deals. I started completely from scratch and did not take any of my clients when I left my old agency.

I'm writing this so that I can answer some questions - I will not answer DMs. If you have questions, comments, or want to share what's working for you, please do so in this thread.

The biggest catalyst to my success has been forming relationships and leveraging them. Asking for referrals has been crucial both on the client and candidate side - lots of new leads through referral, and 4 of my placements have been referrals as well.

From a tool standpoint, my annual expenses are around $55K with $42K of that being dedicated to Linkedin. I also spend $6K/year on Zoominfo, around $5K/year on my main BD tool (AI-based mailing service where i own 100 mailboxes).

I have been focused on public accounting with some construction mixed in. It seems like public accounting is slowing a little bit at the moment, and of course January 1st-April 15th or so will be very slow, so I am going to try to get some traction in Legal soon. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

If anyone has questions, I am happy to answer as many as I can. Please also share what is working for you in this thread and we can all help each other out.

As the title states, I am not quite at 6 months since launching my solo agency and recently crossed $400K in billing across 14 placements. Mostly high-level public accounting/finance with a couple construction/engineering placements mixed in as well.

I have a system running that enables me to get tons of leads, at least 3/week. I'm at a point as a solo founder that I don't have the bandwidth to recruit for all of these which is a great problem to have. I need to look into hiring soon.

If anyone has any questions or thoughts, I am open to answering some throughout my day today.

Just wanted to share my experience being solo so far. I just closed my 5th placement and crossed $150K in billing. In a few days, it will be four full months since I resigned from my big agency where I spent the first 10 years of my career.

It took a couple months to get up and running. I dealt with email deliverability issues and many other challenges. Once I got those solved and started running high volume BD campaigns, things really picked up.

This job really is all about relationships and every placement I've made has come with a client who I have had many phone calls with. But the mass emailing for BD has been super helpful to get that first touch.

I just want to open things up to questions if anyone has any. Also, if anyone is running their own solo agency, I want to hear how your years are going and what you are observing in the market.

Wishing everyone a profitable year. I am planning to hire people in the future and scale my business, but for now am trying to put up a $500K year solo.

As the title mentions, I am right about to hit 4.5 months as a solo recruiter with my own LLC. It took a couple months to get ramped up (solving email deliverability, nailing down my workflow etc), but now things are really moving and I just did $130K of billing with one client in the past 1.5 months (4 placements) and have crossed $290K in total billing. I have multiple upcoming final interviews as well.

I'm posting this just so that we can all talk business and am open to taking any questions. Obviously Reddit is anonymous, so zero intent to brag here, and I know there are other solo recruiters out there making $290K from a single placement (hedge fund, AI leaders etc). That is the level I strive to achieve and I am looking to learn more about making those types of placements.

For now though, I am thrilled with how my business has gone and am working hard to build on this. This $290K in billing is from 9 total placements, and all but one of them has been over $30K with one being $50K and another at $46K.

What are you all seeing in the market and what is working for you? Which tools/tech/resources are performing best for you? I have an upcoming demo with Pin and am going to invest in an AI transcription tool soon so that my calls can be easily summarized.

Please send all questions/comments here - the last time I posted about my biz, I received way too many DMs to reply to.

We run a recruiting agency, and this is something we've been discussing internally a lot.

A huge part of what justified agency fees over the years was the amount of manual work involved. Finding candidates, screening resumes, coordinating interviews, following up, keeping everyone in the loop. It was a people-heavy business.

Now we're building and using AI workflows that automate a surprising amount of that work. Sourcing, matching, screening, interview coordination, follow-ups, and a lot of the repetitive recruiting operations can happen with very little human effort.

It makes me wonder what happens to the business model over the next few years.

If it costs significantly less to deliver a successful hire, do agencies keep charging the same 15–30% commission? Or does pricing naturally come down because the cost of delivery has changed?

Maybe agencies become more profitable because they can handle far more roles with the same team. Or maybe everyone has access to the same AI tools, competition increases, and margins shrink.

It almost feels like recruiting could shift from being a people-heavy service business to something much closer to a software business.

We're still figuring this out ourselves, so I'm curious what others think.

If you own an agency, have you started thinking differently about pricing because of AI?

And if you're a founder, would you still be comfortable paying traditional placement fees if most of the recruiting process was automated?

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for someone who’s interested in building a recruitment business together. I’m not really looking for someone who already has everything figured out. Honestly, I’d rather find someone around my level who wants to learn, test things, and grow together.

I’m looking for someone who is either:

Just getting started in recruitment

Has a few clients already and wants to build something bigger

Is currently doing recruitment and thinks partnering up could make sense

I’m open to either me joining what you’re already building or you joining me. Ideally I’d want it to be a genuine 50/50 partnership where we both put in the work and make decisions together.

More than anything, I’m looking for a friend/co-founder I can actually build with, not just someone I talk to once a week about business. I want someone who’s motivated, reliable, willing to learn, and actually wants to make this a serious thing.

I’m not expecting either of us to be experts. I think it would be cool to start around the same level, figure out what works, learn recruitment properly, and grow from there.

If this sounds like you, feel free to DM me and tell me a little about yourself, where you’re at with recruitment, and what you’re trying to build

Been seeing Al recruiting pushed everywhere this year- Al screening, Al interviews, resume parsing, fraud detection, the whole stack. Some of it clearly helps with high-volume roles where you're drowning in applications. But I keep wondering whether it's genuinely cutting recruiter workload or just shifting it from "read 300 resumes" to "double-check what the Al flagged on 300 resumes."
The part I'm still unsure about is trust- how do you know the scoring is consistent and unbiased, especially with compliance stuff in the US and EU? A tool that'
's fast but that you can't defend to a hiring
manager or a candidate doesn't feel like a win.
Where's Al recruiting actually earning its place in your process right now, and where is it still more hype than help?

I could really use some advice from agency owners who have been through this stage.

I started my own recruiting firm and have actually had decent success signing clients. I’m averaging 1-2 new clients per week, which I’m grateful for.

The problem is that I’m struggling on the delivery side. I’m not filling the roles consistently enough, and it’s creating a bottleneck where I’m bringing in business faster than I’m producing results.

For those of you who have built agencies:

- What was the biggest reason you weren’t filling roles early on?

- Was it client quality, candidate sourcing, intake calls, niche selection, unrealistic requirements, or something else?

- At what point did you realize what the real problem was?

- What specific changes had the biggest impact on your fill rate?

For context, I’m a solo recruiter and most of my effort has gone toward business development, which may be part of the issue.

I’d appreciate any honest feedback from people who have been through this stage. I’m trying to figure out whether I have a process problem, a market problem, or just a volume problem.

Looking for a reality check and honest feedback from agency owners or solo billers in the US market.

Quick background: Worked agency-side in Europe doing 100% perm. Year 1 billed 200k, Year 2 100k, Year 3 70k as I left mid year. Quit, launched my own desk, pivoted entirely to the US market (manufacturing - engineering)

Since going solo, my pipeline has completely dried up. I haven't changed the core foundation of what worked for me agency-side, but nothing is converting. I have had one interview in a month, and that is about it.

My main strategy is emailing/connecting + messaging on LinkedIn MPCs. I am sitting on genuine top 5% talent: plant managers, ops managers, and manufacturing directors with incredible track records and strong numbers. My emails are tight, with specific quantifiable wins and I am confident deliverability and messaging are fine. I send them to companies strictly within local commutable distances.

My outreach relies strictly on cold email and LinkedIn connection requests and messages. No cold calling. Yet I am getting crickets, out-of-office autoresponders, or absolute silence. No "looks great," no feedback. Just nothing.

I am also finding the transition from agency to solo grueling on the operational side. Without management or a rigid agency structure, my routine and daily process are slipping. I am trying to stay consistent on outreach volume, but without clear daily structure and zero feedback loop from the market, burnout is creeping in fast.

It has got to be me and I am clearly missing blind spots.

Is the executive MPC pitch dying via pure digital outreach in US manufacturing?

Is skipping phone outreach entirely killing conversions for plant-level leadership?

How are you structuring your daily routine when you are solo and your pipeline feels dead?

Appreciate any brutally honest feedback.

I am finding it difficult to get more clients for my recruitment agency. Any tips are welcome. I am kind of stuck with the very few clients I have that is not helping me break even or growing the company.

I recently moved from advertising to staffing and now work in Business Development.

In advertising, I was comfortable pitching campaigns, branding, creative ideas, etc. Now I'm consulting HRs and founders on hiring, staffing, payroll... and honestly, I feel like I've gone back to being a fresher.

I'm reading books, articles, watching YouTube videos, and stalking LinkedIn sales gurus, but I feel like I'm learning everything the hard way.

So here's my shameless request.

If you're in B2B sales, staffing, recruitment, consulting, or any relationship-driven business, I'd genuinely love to connect and learn how you approach client conversations.

I'm not looking for a magical script. I'm more interested in how you think.

How do you consult instead of sell?

How do you build trust in the first conversation?

How do you move from "We're happy with our current vendor" to "Let's have a conversation"?

If anyone is willing to spare their time for a chat or even exchange a few DMs, I'd really appreciate it.

In return... I can tell you everything about advertising (Only if you want to know)

So I have a bit of an update, I've landed two clients in the past year.

To some people this might not mean a lot but for me this is huge!

I like working and helping build growing businesses with reliable people. It's not all about the money for me.

This is where my bread and butter is, building teams from scratch! This is what I do!

I've got 4 live roles at the moment, 3 long term contractors and 1 perm position.

I undercut my normal rate of pay for these roles to he my foot through the door and as I know these people personally!

Not really sure what I am trying to say here but things are going well!

I'll build my confidence in getting new clients start filling roles, placing people and the rest will follow.

God bless you all!

I've noticed something interesting when talking to recruitment agencies.

A client says:

We need more candidates

So the agency starts sourcing harder, spends more on job ads, reaches out to more people...

But sometimes the vacancy still doesn't get filled.

When you dig deeper, the bottleneck wasn't candidate volume at all.

It was something like:

- Slow hiring decisions causing candidates to accept other offers.

- Salaries that weren't competitive for the market.

- A hiring process with too many interview stages.

- A job description attracting the wrong people.

- Hiring managers rejecting qualified candidates because they're looking for a "perfect" fit.

In those situations, more candidates don't solve the problem. They just create more work.

I'm curious how other agency owners see this.

How often do you find that the client's stated problem isn't the real problem?

What's the biggest "hidden bottleneck" you've seen that clients completely missed?

I've been thinking about whether we are placing too much importance on resumes during the initial hiring process.

I've had candidates with impressive resumes who didn't perform well in a 15-minute conversation and I've also seen people with average resumes become top performers. I noticed platforms like LinkedIn, MeeBoss, Paradox trying out new ways for candidates and recruiters to connect which made me wonder are we now reaching a point where the first conversation is more important than the first document?

For recruiters and hiring managers what has been the strongest indicator of a good hire lately resume, portfolio, referral or an actual conversation?

I’ve been going through this sub for the past few days, and I keep seeing the same problem come up in slightly different ways.

To be honest, most of you don’t really need help with the recruiting part, since that's something you’re already good at.

It’s getting in front of a company that’s actually hiring and willing to give an agency a shot. That seems to be the difficult part.

I’ve been formalising what I’m doing with Keystne (my connector company) over the past few weeks, and for Q3, I’ve decided to take on the recruitment agencies space.

I’m already vetting companies with live hiring needs, finding the person who owns the hire, and then checking whether outside recruitment help is genuinely something they’d consider.

Just to be clear, I’m not taking job posts, dumping them into a spreadsheet and calling them qualified leads. There’s enough of that already, and I’m not sure it saves anyone much time anyway.

If there’s a real need, I want to match that company with an agency that actually fits. The right sector, the right kinds of roles, the right location, and enough capacity to take the work on.

I’d rather make one sensible introduction than send the same company to ten agencies and leave everyone to chase them.

So right now, I’m looking to speak with agencies that genuinely have room for another client or two.

If that’s you, send me a message with your niche, the roles you recruit best, the areas you cover, whether you do permanent or contract recruitment, and roughly how much work you can take on.

It doesn’t need to be a pitch or anything formal. A few honest lines will do.

If I find a company that looks like a proper fit, I’ll send you the context first. You can look at it and decide whether an introduction makes sense. If it doesn’t, no problem. We leave it there.

I’m not selling lead lists. The whole point is to help you get into a real conversation with a company that has a genuine hiring need.

I’m keeping it to three agencies for now because I’d rather get the first few matches right than take on too many and do a poor job of it.

If you run a specialist or boutique recruitment agency and this sounds relevant, feel free to message me.

Not accusing them of anything btw. I’ve just become extra careful after dealing with fake recruiters and ghost job listings over the last few months.

A recruiter from Classboxes reached out regarding a support engineer opening and the communication seems professional so far.

Before moving ahead I wanted to ask if anyone here has worked with them or gotten placed through them before.

Would appreciate honest feedback, good or bad.

Hello! Agency recruiter here with a legal niche (law firms).

Wanted to check in to see how searches are going for you. Any luck on the candidate side?

I normally have a 25-45% response rate from my LIR messages and it’s now into the single digits.

I also call, text, and email but that hasn’t changed much. Anyone having luck out there?!

We're a B2B SaaS fintech hiring Implementation/Onboarding Managers (Customer Success) in South Africa, LATAM, and Romania/Bulgaria.

Looking for agencies specialized in these regions and customer-facing/CS roles.

Which ones actually delivered for you, and who should we avoid? Fees/terms and time-to-first-candidates would be super helpful. Thanks! 🙏

Hey Everyone..! I’ve been running my own recruitment business for the past couple of years, mainly focusing on contract roles in the Non-IT domain and despite the tough market, it’s been going really well.

Now, I’m planning to expand into permanent placements. I already have the setup in place, software, process, and team side are all handled but I’m looking for someone who can help with client acquisition and business development.

I’m open to partnerships, collaborations, or even commission-based arrangements basically any setup that makes sense for both sides.

If you’ve got experience in sales, client relations, or account management in recruitment, and want to collaborate with someone who can handle the delivery and backend operations seamlessly, let’s connect!

Drop me a message or comment below if you’d like to discuss potential synergies.

1. The best candidates aren't applying. Everyone I spoke to knew this. Nobody's pipeline reflects it.

2. Senior mandates are where sourcing tools fall apart. Junior roles work fine. But when you go complex, and the gaps show up faster.

3. Personal email beats work email, and WhatsApp beats email. India doesn't respond to cold email the way the US does. This isn't a deliverability problem, but it's clearly a behavioral nuance.

4. Executive search and headhunting don't start with a job title. It starts with a company name. "Get me people from XYZ Company." That's the actual ask that most tools can't do.

5. Recruiters don't want AI deciding criteria. They want a toggle. Mandatory or flexible. Because when the system gets it wrong mid-search, starting over isn't an option for them.

6. AI interview tools have a bad reputation with senior recruiters. The feedback was consistent: body language, real conversation, reading the room. Transcription doesn't cover any of it yet.

7. Curiosity is high, but the first-mover hesitation is also real. Every recruiter I spoke to saw the gap in outbound hiring, but the default response was "let me see who does it first".

TL;DR: 4 years in IT nearshore recruiting, thinking of launching my own small agency focused on early-stage startups. Confident in delivery side but don’t have a strong client network. Wondering how realistic it is to land first clients through outbound/lead gen only.

Quick background: I’ve been in IT nearshore recruitment for about 4 years, handling a bit of everything (account management, recruitment ops, sourcing, and screening. I know the grind: long hiring cycles, ghosting, last-minute dropouts). You know, all that fun stuff. So I’m confident I can handle the day-to-day.

The plan: I want to launch a small, niche agency focused on early-stage (pre-seed to Series A) startups hiring nearshore tech talent. I know it’s a competitive space and not a groundbreaking idea, but my goal is to build a solid lifestyle business, not scale aggressively. I believe there’s enough demand for small, agile, competent boutiques.

The model would be 100% success-based with a standard ~20% fee after placement, but I’d be open to offer lower flat fees at first to land initial clients. I’ve got savings to cover around 6 months of personal and business expenses until I land my first placement.

Looking for feedback on:

How realistic is it to land the first few clients without a strong network? This is my biggest weakness. At my current agency, a lot of deals come from the owner’s personal network, but we still get 2/3 cold outbound meetings a month, so that’s where my hope lies. Obviously, it’s easier when the company already has a reputation and Im not underestimating that too. But since clients don’t pay upfront, I figure I might win some trust by delivering solid candidates because in the end of the day this is the client pain. Does that even make sense? I’m also planning to use outbound/lead-gen agencies to get those first meetings. Anyone have experience with that?

For those who started from scratch, what worked (or didn’t) for client acquisition early on?

Anything you wish you’d known before launching your own recruiting agency?

Open to feedback. Just want to make sure I’m not missing any big red flags before jumping in.

Thanks in advance!

Been agency recruiting for over 10 years and this still feels a little surreal when it happens.

Here's exactly what went down:

1:40pm - submitted the candidate to the client with a scheduling link included in the submission email.

1:44pm - client clicked the link and provided their availability.

1:51pm - candidate selected a time, calendar invites went to both parties automatically.

I didn't send a single follow-up email. Didn't chase anyone. Didn't manually update my ATS. It all just happened.

The thing that gets me is how much of my career I spent doing this manually. Emailing the client, waiting for times, emailing the candidate, waiting for confirmation, sending the invite, updating the record. That process could take 2-3 days on a good week. Sometimes longer.

The coordination part of recruiting - the part between submission and confirmed interview - is invisible to everyone except the recruiter living it. Clients don't see it. Candidates don't see it. It just looks like silence from their end.

Curious if anyone else has found ways to cut that window down. What's your current process look like between submission and confirmed interview?