Hiring and retaining recruiters is still one of the biggest challenges recruitment agencies face.
Ironically, while recruitment professionals excel at finding talent for their clients, many struggle when it comes to recruiting for their own agencies. This is what we refer to as the Cobblers' Shoes scenario!
In this edition of the newsletter, I'll be exploring some of the practical strategies I talked about in one of my recent Roundtables on how to attract and retain top-tier recruiters for your business.
The Reality of Hiring and Retaining Talent
Hiring recruiters for your agency can often feel like a case of the cobbler who does a great job for his customers, but who has old, tired, worn out shoes for himself.
While you're experts in talent acquisition for others, finding and keeping the best recruiters for your own agency is something that we just struggle at getting right.
So, how can we fix this? Let’s break down the process into two main components: hiring and retention.
Hiring Recruiters: The Right Way to Attract Talent
Recruitment agencies often struggle with attracting high-quality recruiters because they treat their internal hiring as an afterthought. If you're serious about growing your agency, you need to approach hiring recruiters with the same rigour you apply to servicing your own clients.
You simply cannot dabble at this!
Here are some of the practical tips we talked about that might help you attract some of the best recruiters:
Treat Yourself as Your Best Customer
One of the most important takeaways is to treat your agency as your most important client. Just as you’d go above and beyond to fill a role for a high-value client, you should give the same attention to your internal hiring process.
Build out a strong hiring process that is well-defined, measured, and regularly reviewed.
Build a Recruitment Funnel
Your internal hiring process should be just like your candidate generation funnel.
Measure every step of the process and treat it like a business development strategy. It takes time to nurture great talent down the funnel so build some momentum quickly.
How many meetings or coffee chats is your CEO or MD having each week with potential new hires?
Partnering with Rec2Recs
If your goal is to grow your headcount significantly, partner with specialised Rec2Rec, who gets your business and understands the nuances of your business and unique culture. However, don’t just rely on contingent relationship; retain a Rec2Rec to ensure they are fully invested in finding the best talent for your agency.
You simply won't get a look in if you don't!
(I know some of the good ones - DM me if you want an intro)
Invest in an Internal Talent Manager
For agencies looking to scale, hiring an internal talent manager can be one of the most savviest of moves. This person’s job is to own the recruitment process within your business - finding, nurturing, and coaching new recruiters.
If you are small agency, with limited budget, partner up with another TRN member and share the Talent Manager resource with one or two other agencies.
Marketing Matters
A well-structured recruitment marketing campaign is essential. It’s not enough to post job ads and hope for the best. You need a specific employer branding campaign aimed at making your agency stand out.
Be clear on what makes your business a great place to work and showcase it across all channels.
Compare yourself to to your competitors - how do you stack up against them with how they are promoting themselves as an employer of choice?
Retaining Recruiters: Locking in Top Talent
Retention is just as important as hiring. It’s no use bringing top talent into your agency if you can’t keep them. The cost of losing a good recruiter is high (we suggest you need to generate up to £250k in NFI to generate enough margin to cover the costs of replacing a bad hire in your business —not only in terms of replacement costs but also lost revenue and the time it takes to get someone up to speed.
Here are strategies to help you retain your recruiters:
Create a High-Performance Culture
You need to have a clear path for performance from day one. Recruiters, whether experienced or fresh out of an academy, should start making an impact within four to six weeks - any longer than that is just too long.
This requires excellent an onboarding and training programme that really works, and setting clear expectations from the beginning.
Foster Career Development and Growth
Career growth is essential in retaining your recruiters.
Develop competency frameworks that align with different roles within your agency. For example, not everyone wants to move into management or take on a full 360-degree role.
By providing clear paths for progression tailored to different skill sets, you can retain top talent who may want to specialise in a particular area.
Be Flexible with Working Arrangements (only if they have earned it!)
Whether you opt for a fully remote, hybrid, or in-office model, "earned flexibility" is key.
Allow your high performers more freedom, but ensure you maintain structure and accountability for those who need it.
Flexibility should be earned through performance, not given without merit.
Employee Engagement and Emotional Retention
Your agency's culture plays a massive role in whether people stay or leave.
Create an environment where your recruiters are engaged, feel valued, and are emotionally connected to the business.
Regularly measure engagement and address issues before they lead to turnover. We run employee engagement surveys for TRN members all the time and it is so insightful as a warning system to prevent issues, rather than when it is too late.
You might also find the results of our recent Ignite survey of interest - identifying the motivations and engagers of today's recruiter.
Lock Them In Contractually
Incentives such as share options, profit-sharing, and retention bonuses can be powerful tools in locking in top talent.
Consider implementing long-term incentive plans like EMI (Enterprise Management Incentives) schemes, which not only motivate employees but also align their goals with the company’s success.
There is a brilliant roundtable we ran on TRNWorld all about setting these up and running EMI schemes, so let me know if you're interested and I'll send you the link to watch the recording.
Understanding the Hiring Landscape: Middle Performers vs. Top Performers
One counterintuitive, yet highly effective approach to hiring is focusing on the middle 40% of performers, your average billers, rather than exclusively targeting top billers.
These mid-level recruiters are more affordable, reliable, and often more consistent in their performance. They are the backbone of many successful agencies as they can often deliver greater levels of Net Contribution back to the business (I have a great tool around this called the Net Contribution Calculator, if you'd like to take a look in to this for your business).
Plus, there are more of them, so a 10% uplift across all your average performers across the middle 40% makes a huge impact on the overall business performance.
The Middle 40% Strategy
While top recruiters can come with high costs and expectations, the middle 40% often offer more value. They are less likely to demand exorbitant salaries and guarantees, and when nurtured correctly, they become strong performers over time.
Focus on developing and growing these individuals into your next top billers - it might well be best route to get top performers without having to go and "pay " for them.
Targeting the Right People
Understanding who you are targeting is crucial.
As an example, a great strategy for finding junior recruiters is to tap into individuals who have spent their first year in recruitment (grads, second-jobbers etc.) at a competitor and are at their 12-month mark.
These individuals have completed the initial ramp-up phase at someone else’s expense (your competitor), they have done the hard bit getting through year one, and are ready to be headhunted!
Green Light Thinking: Be Creative in your Approach
Sometimes the best hires come from unexpected places. Recruitment isn’t just about hiring experienced individuals from other agencies. It’s about finding the right skills in the right places.
Leverage Non-Traditional Talent Pools
For example, one agency we work with ran a campaign targeting local rugby clubs because many of their existing high-performing recruiters had the same skills and traits seen on a rugby field.
They found that the characteristics that made a successful rugby player aligned with the skills needed in recruitment - they have 5 recruiters in their business currently, all from the same rugby team!
University Partnerships and Graduate Hiring
If you’re looking to hire graduates, don’t wait until they finish their studies and run around campus on the "milk rounds".
Develop relationships with universities early and get involved with undergraduates in their final year, before they graduate. Get them signed up early.
We have even seen one creative example of an agency offering incentives (aka some beer money!) to undergraduates who were willing to wear branded T-shirts on campus, with QR codes on the back for other undergraduates to scan, that lead to recruitment academy events.
... and why not!
The Importance of a Talent Pipeline
A key to consistent growth is having a steady pipeline of talent. This means always recruiting, even if you’re not hiring immediately. Having a pipeline ensures that when you are ready to scale, you have people lined up and ready to go.
Convincing a good contract recruiter to leave a hot desk and join you, may take some time, so start now!
Run Continuous Campaigns
Automations, workflows, and consistent outreach campaigns should always be running in the background, ensuring that your agency is in constant contact with potential hires.
This is especially important when targeting specific skill sets or locations.
Structuring Your Business for Growth
Finally, to attract and retain the best talent, your agency’s structure must support, not hinder, your ability to attract the best talent.
- Finding a great 360 recruiter is hard.
- Finding a great 180 salesperson is still hard, but a lot easier.
- Finding a great delivery person is also a lot easier (there are loads here by the way!).
I am not saying you shouldn't employ a 360 model in your business, but you have to factor in that it will be harder to find them, than if you broke the role down in to two.
So, are you Taking Take Hiring and Retention Seriously?
Recruiting recruiters may seem ironic, but it’s critical to get right for any growing agency.
By treating your agency as your most important client, building a strong recruitment funnel that works, investing in ongoing talent management, and focusing on proper retention strategies, you can become a talent magnet.
But remember, don’t just dabble at this—make it a core part of your business strategy.
