Where the hungry call the hungry on behalf of the desperate
So you hear them on the radio. Recruiting platforms. Every goddamn commercial break. “Post your job today!” “Hire in 24 hours!” As if every person stuck in traffic is a hiring manager white-knuckling their steering wheel, thinking “My God, I need to fill that Junior Account Manager position RIGHT NOW.”
The radio listeners are mostly people who want jobs, dummy. But that’s the beauty of the recruiting industrial complex—it doesn’t matter who’s listening, as long as someone’s paying.
Let me pull back the curtain on how this machine actually works.
The Business Model: Skin in the Game (Except Not Really Your Skin)
Here’s the deal: recruiting agencies make money when they place someone. They charge the hiring company 15-30% of the candidate’s first-year salary. So if they place someone at $100K, they pocket $15-30K. Not bad for making some phone calls and scheduling interviews, right?
Except it’s not their phone calls. It’s usually some 23-year-old who got hired three weeks ago.
The Commission Structure: Hunger Games for Adults
Most recruiters work on a base-plus-commission model. Base salary runs $50-80K depending on experience. Sounds decent until you realize that’s barely enough to live on in any major city, which means these people are starving for commission.
Commission rates typically range from 10-30% of what the agency makes. So when the agency pockets that $20K placement fee, the recruiter who actually did the work gets maybe $2-6K. And here’s the kicker—most agencies use “tiered” commission structures:
- Hit $0-10K in billings this month: 10% commission
- Hit $10-25K: 15% commission
- Hit $25K+: 20-30% commission
What does this mean? It means if you’re a new recruiter having a bad month, you’re eating ramen and praying someone accepts an offer before rent is due. It means everyone is incentivized to place anyone as fast as possible, quality be damned.
Oh, and those commissions? They usually have a “clawback” clause. If your placement quits or gets fired within 30-90 days, you have to pay back the commission. So that $4K you already spent on rent? You owe it back.
The Training: Sink or Swim, But Mostly Sink
New recruiter training is a beautiful joke. Most agencies give you:
- A 2-4 week “onboarding” where you shadow someone, learn the company’s ATS (Applicant Tracking System), and get lectured about “culture fit”
- Access to LinkedIn Recruiter (because this is 2025 and apparently that’s the only place humans exist)
- A script for cold calling
- A desk, a phone, and a prayer
That’s it. You’re now a “talent acquisition specialist.”
Do they teach you Boolean search strings? Maybe. Do they teach you how to actually evaluate technical skills you don’t possess? Absolutely not. Do they teach you employment law, salary negotiation tactics, or how to identify red flags in a company? Why would they? That takes time, and time is money.
The actual training happens through trial by fire. You spam LinkedIn messages. You cold call people. You get hung up on 47 times a day. You slowly learn which industries are hiring and which buzzwords to parrot.
The Sourcing Methods: LinkedIn, LinkedIn, and More LinkedIn
So how do recruiters actually find people?
95% of the time: LinkedIn.
They have LinkedIn Recruiter (the paid version with 40+ filters) and they search by:
- Job title
- Location
- Skills keywords
- Years of experience
- Company names (especially competitor companies—poaching is the entire game)
They use Boolean strings like: ("product manager" OR "product lead") AND (agile OR scrum) AND (SaaS OR B2B) NOT intern
Then they blast InMails. 150 InMails per month per seat, and they send 25 at once in bulk. The messages are “personalized” in the sense that they might mention your current company name, but that’s about it.
The other 5%:
- Internal ATS databases (resumes from people who applied before)
- Job board resume databases (Indeed, Monster have massive resume banks)
- Employee referrals (offering $500-1000 bounties)
- Occasionally: industry groups, conferences, GitHub for tech roles
What they don’t do: Fiverr. That would be insane and possibly illegal depending on jurisdiction. Most recruiting contracts explicitly forbid outsourcing candidate sourcing to third parties.
The Rules and Constraints: The Wild West (But With Compliance Theater)
Here’s where it gets interesting. What actually stops a recruiter from doing whatever it takes to make a placement?
Legal compliance:
- Equal Employment Opportunity laws (can’t discriminate based on protected classes)
- GDPR for European candidates (data privacy)
- State-specific employment laws
- Can’t lie about salary ranges in states with pay transparency laws
Practical constraints:
- Their ATS/CRM tracks everything, so management knows if you’re gaming the system
- Reputation matters—if you burn candidates or clients, word spreads
- Most agencies have non-compete and non-solicitation agreements preventing you from poaching candidates if you leave
What doesn’t stop them:
- Overselling roles to candidates
- Ghosting candidates after first interview
- Submitting the same candidate to multiple clients without telling the candidate
- Pressuring candidates to accept offers
- Inflating their own credentials (“I’ve placed hundreds of engineers!” means they once hired a guy who knew Python)
The culture is basically: hit your numbers by any means that won’t get the company sued.
The Daily Grind: Phone Scripts, Rejection, and Desperation
A typical recruiter day:
8:00 AM: Check email. See that your top candidate accepted another offer. Panic.
8:30 AM: Team meeting. Manager asks why your numbers are down. You say “pipeline building.” Manager says “build faster.”
9:00 AM: LinkedIn hunting. You send 30 InMails. 2 people respond. One says “not interested.” One ghost.
10:00 AM: Cold calling. You have a list of 50 people who might want a “career opportunity.”
- 35 don’t answer
- 10 say “take me off your list”
- 3 say “email me details”
- 2 actually listen
Of those 2, maybe 1 is remotely qualified.
11:00 AM: Screen calls with interested candidates. Half of them are terrible fits but you submit them anyway because you need to show activity.
1:00 PM: Client calls. The hiring manager changes the job requirements for the third time. Now they want someone with 5 years of experience but will only pay for 2 years. You nod and say “I’ll find someone.”
3:00 PM: Interview scheduling hell. Trying to coordinate 4 different schedules across 2 time zones. Everyone wants different times. Someone cancels last minute.
4:00 PM: Follow-ups. Calling candidates who ghosted after interviews. Most don’t answer. The ones who do say “I’m considering other opportunities.”
5:30 PM: End-of-day panic. You haven’t made a placement in 3 weeks. Your manager is giving you looks. You calculate how much you’ve made this month and realize it’s basically your base salary. You need to place someone. Anyone.
The Scripts: Corporate Kabuki Theater
Yes, many agencies have phone scripts. They sound like this:
“Hi [Name], this is [Your Name] from [Agency]. I came across your profile and was really impressed by your background in [Industry]. I wanted to reach out because we’re working with a fantastic client who’s looking for someone with your specific skill set…”
It’s designed to sound personal and conversational while being completely paint-by-numbers. The script tells you:
- How to open (flattery + vague compliment)
- How to pitch the role (focus on “opportunity” and “growth”)
- How to overcome objections (“I understand you’re not actively looking, but would you be open to hearing about roles that align with your career goals?”)
- How to close (book a 15-minute call)
Do recruiters follow scripts religiously? Depends. New recruiters do. Experienced ones riff. Everyone knows the scripts are bullshit, including the person being called.
The Big Players: Who’s Actually Winning
Indeed is the 800-pound gorilla. They generate nearly $3 billion in annual revenue. Indeed has the biggest job seeker audience, the biggest database, the most data for their AI matching. Over 200 million people use it monthly across 60+ countries.
LinkedIn dominates professional/white-collar recruiting. Everyone uses it. Talent acquisition pros spend half their day there. It’s owned by Microsoft and prints money by charging recruiters $10K+ per year for LinkedIn Recruiter seats.
Job board platforms fight for scraps. They all do the same thing: AI matching, one-click apply, mobile apps, integration with applicant tracking systems. They spend massive amounts on advertising (radio, TV, podcast ads) to stay top-of-mind. The business model is essentially: be loud, be everywhere, capture the small-to-medium business market that needs quick hires.
Staffing giants (ManpowerGroup, Adecco, Randstad, Robert Half) handle volume hiring—retail, warehouses, temp workers, contract roles. Different game entirely. These are billion-dollar operations with global reach.
Specialized agencies (tech recruiters, executive search firms, creative agencies) charge premium rates (25-35% for execs, sometimes 40% for C-suite) but actually know their domain. These boutique firms survive on relationships and expertise.
Who Thrives? Who Gets Fired?
Who succeeds:
- People with high tolerance for rejection
- Natural networkers who can keep relationships warm
- Type-A personalities who treat it like sales (because it is sales)
- People who luck into a hot industry (AI recruiting in 2023-2025 = gold mine)
- Those willing to work 50-60 hour weeks during hiring surges
Who gets fired:
- People who can’t hit metrics (number of calls, submissions, placements)
- Those who get too many complaints from candidates or clients
- Anyone who doesn’t place someone within their first 90 days
- People who can’t stomach the rejection and quit
The turnover rate is absurd. It’s not uncommon for 50% of new recruiters to leave within their first year. The ones who stay either love it or are too invested to leave.
The Work-from-Home Question
Post-COVID, many recruiting agencies went hybrid or remote. Why? Because:
- Recruiting is 90% phone/video calls and email—you don’t need an office
- It’s cheaper for the agency (no office space for 50 desks)
- It expands the hiring pool for the agency itself
Most recruiters now work from home at least part-time. The job is lonely either way—you’re mostly talking to strangers who don’t want to talk to you.
The Fundamental Problem: Misaligned Incentives
Here’s the core issue with the recruiting agency model: the agency doesn’t get paid unless someone gets hired. The hiring company doesn’t pay unless they find someone good. The candidate just wants a job that doesn’t suck.
But the recruiter? The recruiter gets paid when the hire happens, regardless of whether that hire works out long-term. So the incentive is speed, not quality. The incentive is “get them in the door” not “make sure this is a good match.”
And the companies hiring through agencies? They’re usually the ones who either:
- Can’t hire fast enough themselves
- Don’t have a good internal recruiting team
- Have a reputation problem (high turnover, toxic culture) and need fresh meat
So you end up with desperate recruiters pushing mediocre candidates to companies with problems, all while everyone pretends this is “talent acquisition.”
This creates a cycle where everyone involved is somewhat dissatisfied, but the machine keeps running because the alternative—companies building strong internal recruiting teams—requires long-term investment that most businesses won’t make.
What This Means for Job Seekers
If you’re on the receiving end of recruiter outreach, understanding this business model helps you navigate it:
When a recruiter contacts you:
- They’re incentivized to move fast—don’t let them rush you
- They may oversell the role or company—do your own research
- They get paid whether you succeed or fail—the 90-day mark is crucial
- They’re working with multiple candidates—you’re not special until you’re hired
Red flags to watch for:
- Vague job descriptions (“fast-paced environment,” “wear many hats”)
- Pressure to accept quickly (“they’re interviewing other candidates tomorrow”)
- Reluctance to disclose the company name upfront
- Ghosting after initial contact (they found someone easier to place)
How to work with recruiters effectively:
- Be clear about your must-haves (salary, remote work, etc.)
- Ask direct questions about why the role is open
- Request to speak with the hiring manager early
- Keep applying directly to companies—don’t rely solely on recruiters
The recruiting industry isn’t going anywhere. It serves a function in the labor market, connecting people who need jobs with companies that need workers. But understanding the economic incentives behind those connections helps you make better decisions about your career.
The Bottom Line
The recruiting machine hums along, fueled by desperation on all sides. Candidates desperate for work. Companies desperate for talent. Recruiters desperate for commission. And somewhere in the middle, occasionally, someone finds a decent job.
The industry isn’t evil—it’s just operating according to its incentives. Understanding those incentives gives you power, whether you’re a job seeker dealing with recruiters, a company considering hiring an agency, or someone thinking about becoming a recruiter yourself.
The perfect candidate doesn’t exist. The perfect job doesn’t exist. But the pitch? The pitch is everything. And if you can convince someone that what you’re offering is exactly what they need, right now, urgently… well, that’s when deals get made.
Just know what you’re getting into.
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