Should your recruiting firm hire full-time or part-time?

Helping clients hire is one thing. Building the right team for your recruiting firm is another challenge entirely—it’s harder when it’s your own. As your business grows, you’ll need to decide: Should you primarily hire full-time in-house recruiters or build a network of part-time support?

Both have pros and cons, and the right choice depends on your plans for the business. 

Today, we’ll play the recruiter, based on our experience helping hundreds of recruiting companies to manage their finances. 

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You don’t have to hire full-time to grow

There’s plenty of merit to building a team at your firm. More recruiters mean you can take on more clients, sign more retainers, and free up time to expand or do some marketing. A larger team can also boost your credibility—some clients feel more confident with a firm that has more than one face on their LinkedIn page.

But they don’t all have to be full-time. Many successful firms operate with a mix of virtual assistants and freelance recruiters. This approach keeps costs lower and reduces the risks that come with full-time hires.

As you well know, W-2 employees require salaries, benefits, training, and onboarding, which adds 20%. They also need management, which takes time and effort, especially in the beginning. And even after all that, they could still leave.

Part-time or freelance hires, on the other hand, offer more flexibility. On Upwork, intermediate freelance recruiters charge $35 to $50 per hour, and you can scale up or down as needed without committing.

Let’s say you need to fill a content marketing position for a client, and you don’t have the time or manpower to source candidates. Instead of hiring a full-time sourcer, you can work with a freelance recruiter to introduce you to candidates from their network for a 20% finder’s fee.

Alternatively, you can partner with another recruitment firm with a complementary network of clients and candidates. They can handle sourcing and placement, and you split the earnings—often 50/50. This allows you to fill more roles, earn more referrals, and focus on other parts of your business.

There’s nothing wrong with being a solo recruiter working with contractors. It gives you control, flexibility, and the ability to “surge” capacity as needed.

At the same time, transactional relationships can disappear just as fast as they arrive. For some firms, the sustainable way to grow is to hire.

A full-time team can help you build a brand

Hiring full-time employees is a big investment, but it has several advantages. 

You get a dedicated team helping you build a brand beyond just you. Unlike contractors with multiple clients, full-time employees focus entirely on your business. They’re committed to its success, invested in its future, and will fill gaps contractors won’t. According to recruiting companies we talk to, clients notice when employees go beyond what’s asked.

As Brittany Hodak, keynote speaker and author of Creating Superfans says that 80% of a customer’s opinion is based on the experience you offer. Customers who are then referred to you by that happy customer are 4x as likely to refer someone else—in a chain reaction.

Plus, as your firm grows, having a team that already understands your processes makes scaling smoother and more sustainable. You wouldn’t believe how many processes exist at your small company until you hire part-time and watch them try to catch up.

When hiring full-time, there are two routes you can take:

• Hire experienced recruiters who require less training but cost more— $77,079 per year.
• Hire entry-level recruiters at a lower cost but who require more training—$49,279 per year.

Your choice may come down to personal style. If you like people to do things exactly as you do them, and enjoy mentoring, hire junior. The training will pay off. Whereas if you need people to do things well and are less concerned about how they do it, hire senior. They’ll bring results.

Or, if you are truly feeling torn, do what you’d advise clients: Hire one of each.

Recruiting tip: Hire in pairs

If you’re hiring full-time, it’s best to hire in twos. This can be two people in either the same role or in similar roles. This can speed up onboarding as they learn together, exchange ideas, and catch up faster without relying solely on you. It also creates a built-in support system that boosts their confidence and reduces early turnover.

There’s also some evidence that it creates a healthy competition and accountability system where both strive to keep up.

Pair recruiting is also its own backup plan. If one hire doesn’t work out, you aren’t left stranded. Of course, you can only do this if you have the budget—but we also have advice for that.

Consider the “total cost” of hiring

Many recruiting pros don’t realize the burden of onboarding until they do it themselves. Now is your moment to take stock of whether you can afford a new hire or two—both money-wise and time-wise.

You will want to hire in advance of the next wave in your industry’s seasonal hiring—that way, you don’t bring someone on late, when you are too busy to onboard them.

Will you be able to afford them? This is where things get tricky and it is vital to have your bookkeeping up to date. If your books are current, you or your bookkeeper can go into your profit and loss (P&L) statement to look at prior busy seasons and calculate roughly, and conservatively, how much of an income surge you can expect. That tells you if you can afford to hire.

If it looks too tight, start managing your cash flow better:

• Reduce your expenses—Here are 10 no-loss cuts you can make today.
• Increase your income—Can you take on extra projects now? Can you raise your rates?
• Find extra capital—If you are diligent about paying your cards off, they are essentially 25-day free loans.

If you feel confident you need to hire and want to hire, get as organized as you expect your clients to be with you. Define the roles, write the job descriptions, and put out notices.

There is no right or wrong choice

It all depends on your firm’s needs. Do you want to scale while maintaining flexibility? Or sustainable growth with a committed team? Or do you want a balance—part-time hires for flexibility and full-time employees for loyalty? Choose what best aligns with your goals right now.

Have a topic you think we should write about? Tell us at info@pilot.com.