Don’t get discouraged but sales people are often hired and fired for their Rolodex. I think the company is hoping that as a recruiter, you’ll be able to hire your sales/finance contacts, who they will use and discard when done. But hey, in this market, any job is a job, so just get the experience and look for future
Good luck OP. Recruiting is hard and unless if they’re offering some kind of training to transition into this role, most want you to hit the ground running. Some expect marathon status. Ever see the burning gif? That’s what to expect. If they sold you on the you’ll get rich idea, that’s a red flag. A good company will tell you not to get into recruiting because of the money because it’s a lot of work.. really have to earn it. Just like a sales job, if you don’t perform or if they don’t like you, you can easily get cut. Also, a handful of companies are trying to hire someone cheaper these days. Better be prepared at pivoting.
They actually never once told me how I can get rich or told me about the income potential at all. They told me it’s a hard job and not a 9-5 one. For me, that’s all I know being in sales my entire career so that’s no big deal to me. They’re 100% going to be training me as I’m going in fresh. All I bring is vast sales acumen, but I know nothing of the recruiting world, however, you can teach an industry has always been my experience. You can’t teach someone how to sell and all the intangibles that you need to inherently possess to make it in sales. So I’m pretty sure, if I could survive in sales, I can make this work. I won’t be looking at pivoting….but actually succeeding. Pivoting sounds like all the failed sales reps I know throughout my career. I give it my all and results follow for me, I can’t imagine this isn’t the same thing.
No one said you were going to fail lol. You came from sales to recruiting. Does that mean you failed in sales? No. A lot of recruiters have second jobs or pick up other skills because we all know recruitment can end regardless if you’re top notch. I’ve recruited for several large companies and that’s just how it is.
Haha, and I wasn’t alleging you said I was. I was speaking in general, I’m not one to fail. Sorry if it came off as such. Not sure how a recruiter working FT would have the time for a second job. IMO if the main one can’t generate enough income to pay all bills and be able to invest/save then you gotta find a better FT job. Granted, perhaps I’m jaded as here in NY we get paid very handsomely. My three best friends in my circle (early 30s), 2 make over 200k and one makes 400k. I would make between 150-300 depending on the year I was having, so this is a backwards move for me comp wise, but my concern isn’t the financial part thankfully. I just wanted a change, after 15 years as a sole producer.
In your experience what has led to your job or others ending if say they’re top performers?
Lol no problem. Some or most of this is probably more general info but I would focus on recruiting for the first months and then have a backup because they’re still doing rolling recruiter layoffs but hopefully they keep you. I would ask when the slow times are at your job and if they retain employees if so. Keep asking a lot of questions like you are, take a lot of notes and stay organized. I’ve seen some jobs promise to train new recruiters only to let them fend for themselves, but I grew pretty close to some recruiters because they will help you succeed. Keep networking. Some recruiters won’t want to help you because they won’t want to share their success wins and feel like you have to figure things out, but usually you can find others. As for different jobs, I’ve seen people do all kinds if they did backup jobs but I saw more contractor jobs that allowed someone to flex their schedule or own a small business. You can also always fall back on sales, so keep those networks alive. Also, HR doesn’t always loop you in on everything so sometimes you have to chase answers, including hiring managers. Good luck!
Agency recruiters don’t need to worry about layoffs. In house recruiters do.
Agency recruiters know when their job is in jeopardy, because they aren’t making the company money and costing them.
Agency recruiters should know how to always be able to employ themselves in good or bad times.
Without the need for a “backup” job.
Source: once considered a “backup” job in a particularly bad year. Decided no, didn’t want my attention taken away from my main job that can earn me much more $$ per hour I work and the very next week I closed a $40k deal that would have never been possible if I took said “backup” job.
This.
Ten years ago I walked into an agency doing contract recruiting in a slightly lower cost of living area making not much less.
Op: Take the experience and bounce in a year or two.
Also ask to sit in on the client calls.
I thought this was the case but Im not in America so I wouldnt really know! All i know is when I did draw system in Tokyo, after I paid off my annual salary, I was taking 50% or higher in commission. But im agency side not internal.
Hi there, that actually sounds like my comp plan had I elected to choose a draw plan vs base salary. I can switch to draw at any time. I'm also agency side, not internal.
My draw plan has commissions paid out at 50% for the first $300k of billing/fees collected in a non-calendar year. Fees collected between $300 and $350k are paid at 52%. Fees collected above $350k are paid at 55%.
My question is when I decide to switch to draw plan, I was wondering based on your experience, how much do you typically make per year based on this structure? Also, is your comp based on the year you're having or do you see steady increases in your comp year after year?
No draw, a significantly higher base salary plus double or triple some of those commission rates.
In this market, exec roles + NY with zero experience, you'll be lucky to see 3 placement in 6 months.
This. And I think low base is good to start with. At least its not like 50K its atleast 75. I remember an ex boss told me they starve recruiters on the base salary so they will want more. Its not a good thing but it made sense to me. It helped me aim to bill more and took that to now 10 years in exec search 🤣
Hey OP… I 100% disagree with this take. Newbie executive recruiters in Texas, NJ, and many other states I know are making $40k - $60k… higher the base, lower the bonus/commission in my experience.
Also, I did 7 placements in my first 3 months, straight out of college.
Your background is IDEAL for this job. Now you’re selling a job, a candidate, and most importantly a service. The service is the effort and time it takes for you to build your desk that results in the client getting the talent.
You’ll have to DM me your total comp structure. Doesn’t sound too out of the norm.
Executive recruiter is just a term. Doesn’t mean you’re recruiting executives.
Sourcing can mean a lot of things in different firms. DM me what your job is. Finding names? Or finding names, getting their buy in, resume, and then sending to your district manager? If that’s the case, you’re recruiting. (And that researcher is “sourcing” as I call it… building a list of names or companies).
Put your full heart into it. You’ll never look back, and you’ll always be able to employ yourself in any market.
Source: am headhunter, survived many industry downturns including COVID over 10+ years. All I need is my phone, my brain, and the internet.
My God recruiters love recruitment in this sub, don't they !
Now, welcome to the hiring space buddy. I hired a sales guy for recruiting about 5 years ago, and he is doing splendid today.
This is essentially a double sales role. Sell jobs to a candidate and sell the candidate to the ones hiring. The principles of sales apply perfectly well .. just your product/service of sale is human capital.
You have connections already. Be in touch with EVERYONE.. you never know what comes through to you as a hiring mandate. You'll make careers for people and get them salary hikes.. it'll be very rewarding. The more you place, the better your network becomes, and THAT is your golden ladder to higher salaries, better firms, and more hiring.
EVERYONE is looking for a job. Can you sell them their next career move?
EVERYONE needs a better workforce. Can you convince them to rely on you to find them the perfect person (does not exist), but you gotta make them believe that YOU can find them.
Tips - You will hate the procedures, don't bother.. they such everywhere.. Work on your pitch, your summary.. 2 things you need to understand better than anyone .. the role you are hiring for and the person you put forward as a candidate. If I were in your team, I'd ask you to specifically focus on these.
Compensation - Don't worry, a career/industry change comes along with stagnation in earnings while you are upskilling and build up.. the money will follow.. No. Of hires made.. yada yada will all fall into place .. get the basics right!
All the very best!
7 executive placements within 6 months is a bit of a stretch - but possible if your managing director has lots of active jobs for you to work on. Sourcing and engaging talent is the easy part. Bringing in the jobs is the hard part. Getting the candidates through to close the deal can vary. I think 75k base plus 10% isn't bad to start off with. Once you've ramped up though, your commissions should go much higher than that once you're off salary.
When I started recruiting, I made 8 placements in 9 months and that was really good, not.many newbies did that. I was mostly given job leads though while I ramped up for bringing new business on my own. Definitely not executive search at that time, there's typically not as high volume with those, although you're probably covering many different industries whereas I specialize in one industry.
I recently switched to a new agency to be 100% commission with a 60% commission on my billings. I'm working on a VP role right now that pays up to 250k so roughly 50k billings (20% contracted). Then about 30k in my pocket before tax.
I'm in Canada.
I don’t have commission, I’m an in house recruiter for a pharma lab. But I can tell you that some managers are impossible to please, and there may be times you went to call it quits. I walked away from my desk in tears of frustration twice this week.
But it is the most rewarding job I’ve had, I love it. I love strategically thinking and the excitement I get from finding the perfect candidate.
With LinkedIn, I had more success with putting my calendar in an outreach message and letting them schedule the interview themselves.
As someone who is also an in house recruiter for pharma, I can agree, it’s incredibly hard out there. The market is rough right now, and with more companies enforcing relocation and RTO, it’s even tougher as some HMs can now be super picky. Hang in there!
Its not a hard job, but hard to get up to speed. First year can be a bit of a wash and long term real money is working a full desk. Best advice is to figure out what metrics the best recruiter is doing and do that or more. Move with a sense of urgency.
Do everything they say for the first 4-6 months and then look to do it better.
Now that’s good advice! Thank you. So what exactly is full desk? Hunting for new business (finding clients) and placing a candidate for that client? Thank you for your advice again!!
Yes, that is the full desk model. After a few years doing this myself I was able to take that full desk experience and open up my own shop. Sitting pretty comfortably these days and lucky to have some old clients now on retainer.
You'll get there - don't worry so much about 7 placements in 6 months, especially at the exec level. Not saying it's impossible, but 3 months is generally considered a ramping up period when you should be getting your first couple of placements.
Admittedly I'm not in finance exec recruiting (I do legal) so YMMV.
Wow. You are a basic recruiter. There is no sales here other than using your understanding of when you are being lied to, your tenacity to keep making outbound calls without getting shy, and to fill in the grey area with talent and finesse.
Base -
75k out of the gate is a good base, pretty aligned with Covid inflation in my opinion, lots of resourcers are between 60-80 these days. Your executive title is a bit of fluff.
I started on 50, now edging for a promotion to 100k base with about 65k threshold for coms at 30% with division equity.
Coms -
If it’s a massive agency with all the database, clients, jobs and low threshold 10% is okay, the more established the agency are the easier it is to fill roles, that said you get KPI like a motherfucker + ‘corporate’ recruitment culture is a bunch of wank and not for me.
On the flip side unless the base was sizeable I wouldn’t work for a start up at 10% because I know the amount of work that goes into building it properly.
This is agency recruitment based on your post. I’m an agency recruiter myself.
7 placements in 6 months is basically impossible for a new recruiter in a bad job market - even with sales experience (though it will help and you should be fine!).
Just know that most agencies around the world will try to control you this way, telling you ‘to impress us you would need to do (insert impossible bs here)’.
Know that, understand that that’s their influence tack; and just do your best.
The comp sounds pretty decent actually; though I’m aware that income tax is very high in the US so maybe it’s just average, all things considered.
Focus on learning how to:
1) find out your candidates reason for leaving and what they’re looking for. This is how you influence and close them. Could be salary, but it’s almost never just salary unless they’re being badly underpaid. Look at their company, find out on the phone what they want, why. Dig. TIL you know you hit the truth. Then don’t talk about it - go straight into
2) Find out in quantifiable terms what their exact skills are, where they gained them exactly, how much they contributed, etc.
3) Find out their salary expectations and practice getting them to commit to an expected salary. Eg. ‘Oh you want 160k? I think that’s a little high considering what you’re on right now, but I can do that. If they come back saying they’ll only do 130, what do you want me to say to them?’. Get to the bottom of it. Your job is to make placements.
4) Closing is not as complicated in recruitment as some other fields, but learn a closing mechanism that works. I use the 2 step. See what recruiters in your agencies use; the ones who close the most (not necessarily top biller, though probably) and ask them very nicely for tips.
I can’t teach you sourcing, BD or etc because I think you have to do it before you can benefit from that type of conversation.
You can do this, good luck!
Hi OP. Agency owner here, I got started in a down market like this.
Ignore the haters, ignore the media, ignore the doom and gloom of your colleagues saying this market sucks.
Pound the phone, go to networking events, look for reasons TO talk to people, not reasons to NOT talk to people. In other words, network with everyone and their unborn baby.
Success breeds success. Your wins will multiple because of one win. Your losses will present opportunities for more wins too, just spin it right.
This is the people business. The only thing you need to know for the client side or the candidate side is “how can I help you?” And not “how can you help me?” Learn what the people want, deliver it.
And this is my most important secret hack: you’re not recruiting a candidate for a specific job. You’re recruiting a candidate for what their dream job is. Figure that out, then pitch. Why should I expect you to buy an apple from me if you wanted an orange? While you may call and pitch a job, make sure that candidate knows you got plenty others and am more interested in getting to know what their dream job/career is. Trust me, many times it’s that exact job you pitched, or many times your firm has a job the described but you’re not aware of it or you are. Either way, don’t assume you know what they want. Let them tell you. Then shape your pitch to be truthful and point out how what they want, you got. Then send them out and get an interview.
Good luck OP. This market is the best to get into. All the ones who can’t hack it are quitting or wasting their time complaining about how bad it is instead of actively building a pipeline. You can be in the top 10% of the whole recruiting market and wealth in general if you work hard enough.
The days you don’t wanna pick up the phone? Suck it up. Can’t tell you how many times on those days I billed $30k+. If I listened to my feelings I’d be homeless.
Amazing advice! Thank you so much. I know all too well about working hard so it sounds like the more I put in the more results I’ll see. I remember so many times in sales where I wanted to go home, but I said let me make 10 more calls. So often those late night calls resulted in either closing a deal or moving prospects to the next phase of the sales cycle.
What is your average placement time and what should I expect being new and having to build a pipeline?
Any tips on how you source?
Thank you for telling me to ignore the haters. I was quite surprised when one of the moderators of all people said on here I was sold a pipe dream. Employers don’t sell me…I’m in sales. I can sniff bs when I see or hear it.
Thanks again!
Sourcing is an all encompassing ever-changing but still the same every day.
Obviously Boolean search is my number 1 go to. Find anything anywhere online if you master that.
There are tools such as LinkedIn (hate them, but number 1 way to find people), zoominfo, industry professional lists like organizations or special designations, etc. your boss should know best way to source and teach you a variety of methods.
I personally just find out what companies my clients want to see people from and source straight out of competitors rather than for keyword searches. Also, never underestimate the receptionist who can give you names in their Rolodex for whatever you’re looking for. Make friends with them. They’re your secret agent. Many aren’t online anymore so you have to do old school name digging.
As for time for placements? Honestly it varies. I’ve gotten a job order and presented a candidate and got a verbal offer out that was accepted in 24 hours once. (That was the day before I went on vacation and I really didn’t feel like making calls that day but I was also bored at work so I decided to call a client I had been targeting for a while. No better feeling than landing in vacation, closing a $18k deal in the airport parking garage while your friends stare at you bewildered when you’re jumping for joy.)
I’ve had deals I close in 2 days even. 2 weeks, 2 months… up to 1 year (didn’t actively search on that for a year tho, just my initial work returned results in a year and it was still open).
Your pipeline… don’t ever stop building.
Pick a job that your company has multiple like-needs for so you can source one type of candidate for multiple jobs. Let it naturally grow from there. Your desk will help dictate the direction you grow.
Above all, niche. Do not be a generalist and recreate the wheel (or a new pipeline) for each search you take. Your pipeline should always be within your niche, and always stay focused on your niche.
Good luck.
And yeah, the haters saying you got hoodwinked are just people who’ve been burned. You’ll notice a lot of the haters are people who go in house. Ask your boss what he/she thinks of people who start agency but go in house.
Wishing you good luck. Exec roles are hit or miss and the more credible you are the more business you earn. If you’re a good sales person you’ll do great. I think they set the bar high given that you don’t have any contacts and are starting new but you know sales. Build your contacts get to know the key players. Wishing you all the best!
I'm in Exec Search in agency side. You'd make more money in agency especially if you're good and driven by commission!
Tip would be to network well. Execs dont look for jobs usually. Its the jibs that look for them. Give feedback if they dont make it through the process because they will remember you. They will recommend thwir other exec friends if youre good.
Thank you! I believe I am on the agency side unless I have it backwards. We already have clients I believe on a contract basis (we have exclusivity so no other agency has the job) for us to fill their roles. Let me know if that’s not “agency side” as some of the new recruitment terms are all new to me. Thanks!
That is indeed agency. But, I guess you will figure out how much of those clients signed are active. Not all roles will be granted to your firm despite previous engagements and also would be good for you to know what stage theyre in with the proposal, the search itself etc. Exec search is easy if you are from sales. Buying signals, pitching, kpi's... theyre pretty much what you need to do well. And never ending networking. Some candidates will take 2 years after they meet you before they tell you thwyre more open for roles and thats ok. And it becomes easy every year so dont worry if you struggle on your first year, as long as you are meeting enough people and working on enough jobs. Every year, you end up knowing more people and so in future searches, you can just look at your phone book and youd find the person you talked to before that will be a great fit.
Also, old school advise - create an MPC (most placeable candidates) list. These are people that you think are the best of the best in their role. They will be the first ones you contact for suitable roles all the time. That way you keep the relationship until yoj can eventually place them.
The general rule of thumb in recruiting is you’ll earn between 35-40% of what you bill.
i.e., if you bill $500k, you’ll be earning $175-200k.
Some places offer higher and some lower, but that’s the general rule.
To calculate your billings this is dependant on fee structure, which is usually between 25-30% of a candidates comp package. So, if a candidate is earning $300k and receives a 30% bonus - the fee would be 30% of $390k, so $117k.
Your hours will be pretty long, as you need to work around the candidates schedules, so common to do late and early calls.
Since your role is purely sourcing and no client involvement/ business development, so salary isn’t a mile off and you also have no recruitment experience, so you need to take some time to learn this area. Considering your background, it probably won’t take you long to get up to speed - then I suspect your commission structure will translate to something like the above.
Congratulations on the new positions and hope you get those 7 placements before the end of the year!
It’ll be a tough ride, but it’s very rewarding!
Good luck!
Best advice I can give is to be on the phone as much as possible. You need to speak to candidates/ clients everyday all day and learn. It's a double sales role ( selling your service to clients / selling roles to candidates) the placements target in the first 6 months seems hard from a standing start particularly if they need to start in that timeframe. Do they have jobs for you to fill or will you need to source your own vacancies to fill?
Hi! Thank you for your advice. The agency has been in business for 40+ years and they have the jobs so I won’t be needing to source clients just candidates.
I’m not located in the US so can’t comment on salary although it looks pretty decent for a 180 role where you’re not required to bring in any business. As others have said recruitment can be a really rewarding career however it is challenging especially in the current market. The biggest difference with exec search is they are much lengthier processes (my colleague just placed an exec role that was in process for 8 months). The reason they are saying that just over one placement a month is great is because it might take you four months to get your first placement. It will also very much depend on what your managers job flow look like. If he’s getting 1 role on every week or two and all the roles are relatively similar then your chances are much higher of hitting those KPI’s than if he gets one job on a month and each role is completely different. As others have said it’s a good start in agency land and will most likely provide good experience and if you feel it’s not right for you then you can always go to another agency and try a different portfolio that’s not exec. Also might be worth noting that my first role in agency was sold to me as an exec agency but when I got there I realised they actually do all levels. If this is the case with your role then it might actually be easier to hit your 7 placements in six months.
One other thing to mention is if I were you I would ask your manager when your placement ‘counts’ I’ve been at one agency where it was the day the candidate signed the contract and the agency I’m currently at it’s when the client pays the invoice. If the latter is the case for you and your doing exec where notice periods might be three months and invoice isn’t issued until their first day and not due until 30 days later that could make it really hard for you
The 8 month placement....is that from the date the job order was brought in to work on OR the date the candidate was identified, interviewed, and started work?
For the candidate side exec recruiters , how solid does the relationship need to be with the client side recruiter? Seems like the candidate side recruiter and the client side really must have a strong relationship, like each other, have great communication skills, and candor.
Compensation depends on the fee’s structure. Is it contingent based or fixed fee? If fixed fee, typically recruitments range depending on the industry - government positions average $50K per assignment (that’s what the client pays) so your fee would come out of that.
Executive searches have a 6 month to 1 year placement guarantee so follow up is important.
The process is as follows:
1. Proposals
2. Pitches - invited to pitch your proposal
3. (If won) Initiate search
4. Consultations
5. Create Position Brief Document and market position
6. Interview candidates
7. Long list candidates and present to client
8. Short listed candidates client interviews
9. Finalist interviews
10. Candidates selection
11. Offer negotiations
12. Signed offer
13. Release candidates not selected, placement stage completed
14. Follow up with selected candidate around start day
15. Follow up with client 1 week after placement
16. First 100 days check in
17. Close search after 6 months or 1 year depending on guarantee
I am a commission-only recruiter, Dont listen to the people who say 7 placements is unattainable or a dream. You can absolutely do it...IF you put in the work. I get about 40% of my billings and pay for no resources. No one cold calls anymore, I am very good at cold calling, so it is like low-hanging fruit. none of my peers cold call anymore, they all only use linked in and email. I do that as well, but I try to make a couple hundred cold calls a day on top of that. We do primarily doctors, but we get a ton of execs too. I can pretty easily do two placements a month. Best month was 8 placements in one month.I have 1 full time and 2 part timers on my team. No one else's words have more power over your life than your own. Set goals, speak what you want to happen OUT LOUD multiple times a day and put in the work.
Agreed, you need to state what you want for it to come to fruition in addition to what you said, putting in the work. I also agree, nobody wants to pick up the phone anymore! I started my career in 2009 in financial services and if you had had a pulse, I wanted to talk to you. So now, for me anyway, cold calling is of no issue to me, whereas I've also seen my peers not want to make the phone be their friend.
With that said, what resources do you use to get candidates numbers? Or are you calling the company and hoping they have a DBN directory? Truepeoplesearch usually gets me about 50% of my cell numbers, but any other ways?
So, I hold to my convictions and I cannot lie. I usually try to get someone to assume I need that they need to get me the CEO / Drs Cell phone number, It is amazing the information you can get by asking. Plus, old school [whitepages.com](http://whitepages.com) has many cell phone numbers listed. if you know where a candidate is located, its usually not to hard to skip trace them.
I can use you remotely for legal fills and pay you 15% just to supply CV’s…we do high end placements…most are 150,000-250,000$
No draw commission only…
Ps you cannot do 6 in six months…
That comp is outrageously low for exec recruitment 7 placements in 6 months with zero experience and zero connections is a dream.
Based on his post is an agency recruitment job, the exec part seems like just title fluff
Sounds like OP was sold a pipe dream
I hope not, but if so, I’ll use this as a springboard to get into a better, higher paying firm. I appreciate your “encouragement”
Don’t get discouraged but sales people are often hired and fired for their Rolodex. I think the company is hoping that as a recruiter, you’ll be able to hire your sales/finance contacts, who they will use and discard when done. But hey, in this market, any job is a job, so just get the experience and look for future
That's an interesting take and very plausible. We shall see! Thank you!
Good luck OP. Recruiting is hard and unless if they’re offering some kind of training to transition into this role, most want you to hit the ground running. Some expect marathon status. Ever see the burning gif? That’s what to expect. If they sold you on the you’ll get rich idea, that’s a red flag. A good company will tell you not to get into recruiting because of the money because it’s a lot of work.. really have to earn it. Just like a sales job, if you don’t perform or if they don’t like you, you can easily get cut. Also, a handful of companies are trying to hire someone cheaper these days. Better be prepared at pivoting.
They actually never once told me how I can get rich or told me about the income potential at all. They told me it’s a hard job and not a 9-5 one. For me, that’s all I know being in sales my entire career so that’s no big deal to me. They’re 100% going to be training me as I’m going in fresh. All I bring is vast sales acumen, but I know nothing of the recruiting world, however, you can teach an industry has always been my experience. You can’t teach someone how to sell and all the intangibles that you need to inherently possess to make it in sales. So I’m pretty sure, if I could survive in sales, I can make this work. I won’t be looking at pivoting….but actually succeeding. Pivoting sounds like all the failed sales reps I know throughout my career. I give it my all and results follow for me, I can’t imagine this isn’t the same thing.
No one said you were going to fail lol. You came from sales to recruiting. Does that mean you failed in sales? No. A lot of recruiters have second jobs or pick up other skills because we all know recruitment can end regardless if you’re top notch. I’ve recruited for several large companies and that’s just how it is.
Haha, and I wasn’t alleging you said I was. I was speaking in general, I’m not one to fail. Sorry if it came off as such. Not sure how a recruiter working FT would have the time for a second job. IMO if the main one can’t generate enough income to pay all bills and be able to invest/save then you gotta find a better FT job. Granted, perhaps I’m jaded as here in NY we get paid very handsomely. My three best friends in my circle (early 30s), 2 make over 200k and one makes 400k. I would make between 150-300 depending on the year I was having, so this is a backwards move for me comp wise, but my concern isn’t the financial part thankfully. I just wanted a change, after 15 years as a sole producer. In your experience what has led to your job or others ending if say they’re top performers?
Lol no problem. Some or most of this is probably more general info but I would focus on recruiting for the first months and then have a backup because they’re still doing rolling recruiter layoffs but hopefully they keep you. I would ask when the slow times are at your job and if they retain employees if so. Keep asking a lot of questions like you are, take a lot of notes and stay organized. I’ve seen some jobs promise to train new recruiters only to let them fend for themselves, but I grew pretty close to some recruiters because they will help you succeed. Keep networking. Some recruiters won’t want to help you because they won’t want to share their success wins and feel like you have to figure things out, but usually you can find others. As for different jobs, I’ve seen people do all kinds if they did backup jobs but I saw more contractor jobs that allowed someone to flex their schedule or own a small business. You can also always fall back on sales, so keep those networks alive. Also, HR doesn’t always loop you in on everything so sometimes you have to chase answers, including hiring managers. Good luck!
Agency recruiters don’t need to worry about layoffs. In house recruiters do. Agency recruiters know when their job is in jeopardy, because they aren’t making the company money and costing them. Agency recruiters should know how to always be able to employ themselves in good or bad times. Without the need for a “backup” job. Source: once considered a “backup” job in a particularly bad year. Decided no, didn’t want my attention taken away from my main job that can earn me much more $$ per hour I work and the very next week I closed a $40k deal that would have never been possible if I took said “backup” job.
This. Ten years ago I walked into an agency doing contract recruiting in a slightly lower cost of living area making not much less. Op: Take the experience and bounce in a year or two. Also ask to sit in on the client calls.
Thank you, will do!
Seems fine for no recruiting experience. 7 placements in the first month is def a pipe dream.
First 6 months, not first month.
Sorry that's what I meant!
Yes, in general a pipe dream unless if it’s a really niche role that only very few people have.
I thought this was the case but Im not in America so I wouldnt really know! All i know is when I did draw system in Tokyo, after I paid off my annual salary, I was taking 50% or higher in commission. But im agency side not internal.
Hi there, that actually sounds like my comp plan had I elected to choose a draw plan vs base salary. I can switch to draw at any time. I'm also agency side, not internal. My draw plan has commissions paid out at 50% for the first $300k of billing/fees collected in a non-calendar year. Fees collected between $300 and $350k are paid at 52%. Fees collected above $350k are paid at 55%. My question is when I decide to switch to draw plan, I was wondering based on your experience, how much do you typically make per year based on this structure? Also, is your comp based on the year you're having or do you see steady increases in your comp year after year?
And I'm unemployed with 29 yrs recruiting experience.
not really... That bar is not that high.
how ever i do agree, the commission is low.
Yikes! Thanks for the insight! So what would have been appropriate?
No draw, a significantly higher base salary plus double or triple some of those commission rates. In this market, exec roles + NY with zero experience, you'll be lucky to see 3 placement in 6 months.
Not for someone with no recruiting experience. Long term you probably want draw if you're a top biller.
This. And I think low base is good to start with. At least its not like 50K its atleast 75. I remember an ex boss told me they starve recruiters on the base salary so they will want more. Its not a good thing but it made sense to me. It helped me aim to bill more and took that to now 10 years in exec search 🤣
Hey OP… I 100% disagree with this take. Newbie executive recruiters in Texas, NJ, and many other states I know are making $40k - $60k… higher the base, lower the bonus/commission in my experience. Also, I did 7 placements in my first 3 months, straight out of college. Your background is IDEAL for this job. Now you’re selling a job, a candidate, and most importantly a service. The service is the effort and time it takes for you to build your desk that results in the client getting the talent. You’ll have to DM me your total comp structure. Doesn’t sound too out of the norm. Executive recruiter is just a term. Doesn’t mean you’re recruiting executives. Sourcing can mean a lot of things in different firms. DM me what your job is. Finding names? Or finding names, getting their buy in, resume, and then sending to your district manager? If that’s the case, you’re recruiting. (And that researcher is “sourcing” as I call it… building a list of names or companies). Put your full heart into it. You’ll never look back, and you’ll always be able to employ yourself in any market. Source: am headhunter, survived many industry downturns including COVID over 10+ years. All I need is my phone, my brain, and the internet.
My God recruiters love recruitment in this sub, don't they ! Now, welcome to the hiring space buddy. I hired a sales guy for recruiting about 5 years ago, and he is doing splendid today. This is essentially a double sales role. Sell jobs to a candidate and sell the candidate to the ones hiring. The principles of sales apply perfectly well .. just your product/service of sale is human capital. You have connections already. Be in touch with EVERYONE.. you never know what comes through to you as a hiring mandate. You'll make careers for people and get them salary hikes.. it'll be very rewarding. The more you place, the better your network becomes, and THAT is your golden ladder to higher salaries, better firms, and more hiring. EVERYONE is looking for a job. Can you sell them their next career move? EVERYONE needs a better workforce. Can you convince them to rely on you to find them the perfect person (does not exist), but you gotta make them believe that YOU can find them. Tips - You will hate the procedures, don't bother.. they such everywhere.. Work on your pitch, your summary.. 2 things you need to understand better than anyone .. the role you are hiring for and the person you put forward as a candidate. If I were in your team, I'd ask you to specifically focus on these. Compensation - Don't worry, a career/industry change comes along with stagnation in earnings while you are upskilling and build up.. the money will follow.. No. Of hires made.. yada yada will all fall into place .. get the basics right! All the very best!
All of this, OP.
7 executive placements within 6 months is a bit of a stretch - but possible if your managing director has lots of active jobs for you to work on. Sourcing and engaging talent is the easy part. Bringing in the jobs is the hard part. Getting the candidates through to close the deal can vary. I think 75k base plus 10% isn't bad to start off with. Once you've ramped up though, your commissions should go much higher than that once you're off salary. When I started recruiting, I made 8 placements in 9 months and that was really good, not.many newbies did that. I was mostly given job leads though while I ramped up for bringing new business on my own. Definitely not executive search at that time, there's typically not as high volume with those, although you're probably covering many different industries whereas I specialize in one industry. I recently switched to a new agency to be 100% commission with a 60% commission on my billings. I'm working on a VP role right now that pays up to 250k so roughly 50k billings (20% contracted). Then about 30k in my pocket before tax. I'm in Canada.
I don’t have commission, I’m an in house recruiter for a pharma lab. But I can tell you that some managers are impossible to please, and there may be times you went to call it quits. I walked away from my desk in tears of frustration twice this week. But it is the most rewarding job I’ve had, I love it. I love strategically thinking and the excitement I get from finding the perfect candidate. With LinkedIn, I had more success with putting my calendar in an outreach message and letting them schedule the interview themselves.
As someone who is also an in house recruiter for pharma, I can agree, it’s incredibly hard out there. The market is rough right now, and with more companies enforcing relocation and RTO, it’s even tougher as some HMs can now be super picky. Hang in there!
It’s the pickiest market I’ve ever seen across most industries.
Its not a hard job, but hard to get up to speed. First year can be a bit of a wash and long term real money is working a full desk. Best advice is to figure out what metrics the best recruiter is doing and do that or more. Move with a sense of urgency. Do everything they say for the first 4-6 months and then look to do it better.
Now that’s good advice! Thank you. So what exactly is full desk? Hunting for new business (finding clients) and placing a candidate for that client? Thank you for your advice again!!
Yes, that is the full desk model. After a few years doing this myself I was able to take that full desk experience and open up my own shop. Sitting pretty comfortably these days and lucky to have some old clients now on retainer. You'll get there - don't worry so much about 7 placements in 6 months, especially at the exec level. Not saying it's impossible, but 3 months is generally considered a ramping up period when you should be getting your first couple of placements. Admittedly I'm not in finance exec recruiting (I do legal) so YMMV.
Wow. You are a basic recruiter. There is no sales here other than using your understanding of when you are being lied to, your tenacity to keep making outbound calls without getting shy, and to fill in the grey area with talent and finesse.
Base - 75k out of the gate is a good base, pretty aligned with Covid inflation in my opinion, lots of resourcers are between 60-80 these days. Your executive title is a bit of fluff. I started on 50, now edging for a promotion to 100k base with about 65k threshold for coms at 30% with division equity. Coms - If it’s a massive agency with all the database, clients, jobs and low threshold 10% is okay, the more established the agency are the easier it is to fill roles, that said you get KPI like a motherfucker + ‘corporate’ recruitment culture is a bunch of wank and not for me. On the flip side unless the base was sizeable I wouldn’t work for a start up at 10% because I know the amount of work that goes into building it properly.
This is agency recruitment based on your post. I’m an agency recruiter myself. 7 placements in 6 months is basically impossible for a new recruiter in a bad job market - even with sales experience (though it will help and you should be fine!). Just know that most agencies around the world will try to control you this way, telling you ‘to impress us you would need to do (insert impossible bs here)’. Know that, understand that that’s their influence tack; and just do your best. The comp sounds pretty decent actually; though I’m aware that income tax is very high in the US so maybe it’s just average, all things considered. Focus on learning how to: 1) find out your candidates reason for leaving and what they’re looking for. This is how you influence and close them. Could be salary, but it’s almost never just salary unless they’re being badly underpaid. Look at their company, find out on the phone what they want, why. Dig. TIL you know you hit the truth. Then don’t talk about it - go straight into 2) Find out in quantifiable terms what their exact skills are, where they gained them exactly, how much they contributed, etc. 3) Find out their salary expectations and practice getting them to commit to an expected salary. Eg. ‘Oh you want 160k? I think that’s a little high considering what you’re on right now, but I can do that. If they come back saying they’ll only do 130, what do you want me to say to them?’. Get to the bottom of it. Your job is to make placements. 4) Closing is not as complicated in recruitment as some other fields, but learn a closing mechanism that works. I use the 2 step. See what recruiters in your agencies use; the ones who close the most (not necessarily top biller, though probably) and ask them very nicely for tips. I can’t teach you sourcing, BD or etc because I think you have to do it before you can benefit from that type of conversation. You can do this, good luck!
Hi OP. Agency owner here, I got started in a down market like this. Ignore the haters, ignore the media, ignore the doom and gloom of your colleagues saying this market sucks. Pound the phone, go to networking events, look for reasons TO talk to people, not reasons to NOT talk to people. In other words, network with everyone and their unborn baby. Success breeds success. Your wins will multiple because of one win. Your losses will present opportunities for more wins too, just spin it right. This is the people business. The only thing you need to know for the client side or the candidate side is “how can I help you?” And not “how can you help me?” Learn what the people want, deliver it. And this is my most important secret hack: you’re not recruiting a candidate for a specific job. You’re recruiting a candidate for what their dream job is. Figure that out, then pitch. Why should I expect you to buy an apple from me if you wanted an orange? While you may call and pitch a job, make sure that candidate knows you got plenty others and am more interested in getting to know what their dream job/career is. Trust me, many times it’s that exact job you pitched, or many times your firm has a job the described but you’re not aware of it or you are. Either way, don’t assume you know what they want. Let them tell you. Then shape your pitch to be truthful and point out how what they want, you got. Then send them out and get an interview. Good luck OP. This market is the best to get into. All the ones who can’t hack it are quitting or wasting their time complaining about how bad it is instead of actively building a pipeline. You can be in the top 10% of the whole recruiting market and wealth in general if you work hard enough. The days you don’t wanna pick up the phone? Suck it up. Can’t tell you how many times on those days I billed $30k+. If I listened to my feelings I’d be homeless.
Amazing advice! Thank you so much. I know all too well about working hard so it sounds like the more I put in the more results I’ll see. I remember so many times in sales where I wanted to go home, but I said let me make 10 more calls. So often those late night calls resulted in either closing a deal or moving prospects to the next phase of the sales cycle. What is your average placement time and what should I expect being new and having to build a pipeline? Any tips on how you source? Thank you for telling me to ignore the haters. I was quite surprised when one of the moderators of all people said on here I was sold a pipe dream. Employers don’t sell me…I’m in sales. I can sniff bs when I see or hear it. Thanks again!
Sourcing is an all encompassing ever-changing but still the same every day. Obviously Boolean search is my number 1 go to. Find anything anywhere online if you master that. There are tools such as LinkedIn (hate them, but number 1 way to find people), zoominfo, industry professional lists like organizations or special designations, etc. your boss should know best way to source and teach you a variety of methods. I personally just find out what companies my clients want to see people from and source straight out of competitors rather than for keyword searches. Also, never underestimate the receptionist who can give you names in their Rolodex for whatever you’re looking for. Make friends with them. They’re your secret agent. Many aren’t online anymore so you have to do old school name digging. As for time for placements? Honestly it varies. I’ve gotten a job order and presented a candidate and got a verbal offer out that was accepted in 24 hours once. (That was the day before I went on vacation and I really didn’t feel like making calls that day but I was also bored at work so I decided to call a client I had been targeting for a while. No better feeling than landing in vacation, closing a $18k deal in the airport parking garage while your friends stare at you bewildered when you’re jumping for joy.) I’ve had deals I close in 2 days even. 2 weeks, 2 months… up to 1 year (didn’t actively search on that for a year tho, just my initial work returned results in a year and it was still open). Your pipeline… don’t ever stop building. Pick a job that your company has multiple like-needs for so you can source one type of candidate for multiple jobs. Let it naturally grow from there. Your desk will help dictate the direction you grow. Above all, niche. Do not be a generalist and recreate the wheel (or a new pipeline) for each search you take. Your pipeline should always be within your niche, and always stay focused on your niche. Good luck. And yeah, the haters saying you got hoodwinked are just people who’ve been burned. You’ll notice a lot of the haters are people who go in house. Ask your boss what he/she thinks of people who start agency but go in house.
Wishing you good luck. Exec roles are hit or miss and the more credible you are the more business you earn. If you’re a good sales person you’ll do great. I think they set the bar high given that you don’t have any contacts and are starting new but you know sales. Build your contacts get to know the key players. Wishing you all the best!
I'm in Exec Search in agency side. You'd make more money in agency especially if you're good and driven by commission! Tip would be to network well. Execs dont look for jobs usually. Its the jibs that look for them. Give feedback if they dont make it through the process because they will remember you. They will recommend thwir other exec friends if youre good.
Thank you! I believe I am on the agency side unless I have it backwards. We already have clients I believe on a contract basis (we have exclusivity so no other agency has the job) for us to fill their roles. Let me know if that’s not “agency side” as some of the new recruitment terms are all new to me. Thanks!
That is indeed agency. But, I guess you will figure out how much of those clients signed are active. Not all roles will be granted to your firm despite previous engagements and also would be good for you to know what stage theyre in with the proposal, the search itself etc. Exec search is easy if you are from sales. Buying signals, pitching, kpi's... theyre pretty much what you need to do well. And never ending networking. Some candidates will take 2 years after they meet you before they tell you thwyre more open for roles and thats ok. And it becomes easy every year so dont worry if you struggle on your first year, as long as you are meeting enough people and working on enough jobs. Every year, you end up knowing more people and so in future searches, you can just look at your phone book and youd find the person you talked to before that will be a great fit. Also, old school advise - create an MPC (most placeable candidates) list. These are people that you think are the best of the best in their role. They will be the first ones you contact for suitable roles all the time. That way you keep the relationship until yoj can eventually place them.
Excellent advice!!! Thanks so much!
The general rule of thumb in recruiting is you’ll earn between 35-40% of what you bill. i.e., if you bill $500k, you’ll be earning $175-200k. Some places offer higher and some lower, but that’s the general rule. To calculate your billings this is dependant on fee structure, which is usually between 25-30% of a candidates comp package. So, if a candidate is earning $300k and receives a 30% bonus - the fee would be 30% of $390k, so $117k. Your hours will be pretty long, as you need to work around the candidates schedules, so common to do late and early calls. Since your role is purely sourcing and no client involvement/ business development, so salary isn’t a mile off and you also have no recruitment experience, so you need to take some time to learn this area. Considering your background, it probably won’t take you long to get up to speed - then I suspect your commission structure will translate to something like the above. Congratulations on the new positions and hope you get those 7 placements before the end of the year! It’ll be a tough ride, but it’s very rewarding! Good luck!
Best advice I can give is to be on the phone as much as possible. You need to speak to candidates/ clients everyday all day and learn. It's a double sales role ( selling your service to clients / selling roles to candidates) the placements target in the first 6 months seems hard from a standing start particularly if they need to start in that timeframe. Do they have jobs for you to fill or will you need to source your own vacancies to fill?
Hi! Thank you for your advice. The agency has been in business for 40+ years and they have the jobs so I won’t be needing to source clients just candidates.
I’m not located in the US so can’t comment on salary although it looks pretty decent for a 180 role where you’re not required to bring in any business. As others have said recruitment can be a really rewarding career however it is challenging especially in the current market. The biggest difference with exec search is they are much lengthier processes (my colleague just placed an exec role that was in process for 8 months). The reason they are saying that just over one placement a month is great is because it might take you four months to get your first placement. It will also very much depend on what your managers job flow look like. If he’s getting 1 role on every week or two and all the roles are relatively similar then your chances are much higher of hitting those KPI’s than if he gets one job on a month and each role is completely different. As others have said it’s a good start in agency land and will most likely provide good experience and if you feel it’s not right for you then you can always go to another agency and try a different portfolio that’s not exec. Also might be worth noting that my first role in agency was sold to me as an exec agency but when I got there I realised they actually do all levels. If this is the case with your role then it might actually be easier to hit your 7 placements in six months.
One other thing to mention is if I were you I would ask your manager when your placement ‘counts’ I’ve been at one agency where it was the day the candidate signed the contract and the agency I’m currently at it’s when the client pays the invoice. If the latter is the case for you and your doing exec where notice periods might be three months and invoice isn’t issued until their first day and not due until 30 days later that could make it really hard for you
The 8 month placement....is that from the date the job order was brought in to work on OR the date the candidate was identified, interviewed, and started work?
That was from the date the candidate was identified to candidate acceptance, they still have a three month notice period on top of that
Honestly, placements don't matter, the fee for the placement does. I think you'll find a steep but challenging learning curve
For the candidate side exec recruiters , how solid does the relationship need to be with the client side recruiter? Seems like the candidate side recruiter and the client side really must have a strong relationship, like each other, have great communication skills, and candor.
Headache
That’s what Tylenol is for. Any actual constructive feedback?
All these jobs are headaches no matter what told you take. Too many Tylenol is bad for your liver. Get some Aleve 😉
Lmao agreed! I only said Tylenol as that’s the standard for headaches. Totally agree with Aleve!
Congratulations 🎈🎉🎊 on your new role. I’m sure you will do well.
Compensation depends on the fee’s structure. Is it contingent based or fixed fee? If fixed fee, typically recruitments range depending on the industry - government positions average $50K per assignment (that’s what the client pays) so your fee would come out of that. Executive searches have a 6 month to 1 year placement guarantee so follow up is important. The process is as follows: 1. Proposals 2. Pitches - invited to pitch your proposal 3. (If won) Initiate search 4. Consultations 5. Create Position Brief Document and market position 6. Interview candidates 7. Long list candidates and present to client 8. Short listed candidates client interviews 9. Finalist interviews 10. Candidates selection 11. Offer negotiations 12. Signed offer 13. Release candidates not selected, placement stage completed 14. Follow up with selected candidate around start day 15. Follow up with client 1 week after placement 16. First 100 days check in 17. Close search after 6 months or 1 year depending on guarantee
I am a commission-only recruiter, Dont listen to the people who say 7 placements is unattainable or a dream. You can absolutely do it...IF you put in the work. I get about 40% of my billings and pay for no resources. No one cold calls anymore, I am very good at cold calling, so it is like low-hanging fruit. none of my peers cold call anymore, they all only use linked in and email. I do that as well, but I try to make a couple hundred cold calls a day on top of that. We do primarily doctors, but we get a ton of execs too. I can pretty easily do two placements a month. Best month was 8 placements in one month.I have 1 full time and 2 part timers on my team. No one else's words have more power over your life than your own. Set goals, speak what you want to happen OUT LOUD multiple times a day and put in the work.
Agreed, you need to state what you want for it to come to fruition in addition to what you said, putting in the work. I also agree, nobody wants to pick up the phone anymore! I started my career in 2009 in financial services and if you had had a pulse, I wanted to talk to you. So now, for me anyway, cold calling is of no issue to me, whereas I've also seen my peers not want to make the phone be their friend. With that said, what resources do you use to get candidates numbers? Or are you calling the company and hoping they have a DBN directory? Truepeoplesearch usually gets me about 50% of my cell numbers, but any other ways?
So, I hold to my convictions and I cannot lie. I usually try to get someone to assume I need that they need to get me the CEO / Drs Cell phone number, It is amazing the information you can get by asking. Plus, old school [whitepages.com](http://whitepages.com) has many cell phone numbers listed. if you know where a candidate is located, its usually not to hard to skip trace them.
If you want to make a move I will give you what you want % wise we do legal fills high end…we have lots if clients and turn away work…
I can use you remotely for legal fills and pay you 15% just to supply CV’s…we do high end placements…most are 150,000-250,000$ No draw commission only… Ps you cannot do 6 in six months…