I’m trying to think through this for a few open roles. Default mode for us has been finding recruiters directly through referrals or linkedin and working with them on a project basis. It works fine but the calibration takes weeks every time we add someone new and if a recruiter doesn't work out we're back to square one

The other option is some kind of broader hiring service that handles matching and infrastructure. Faster ramp, fee clarity, less admin on our end. The worry is giving up the deeper relationship you'd build with a recruiter you found and trained directly. I genuinely don't know which side of this is right for our situation

I recently got into recruitment and I'm struggling a lot with business development. I have tried cold calling and sending cold emails. Most of the time on cold calls I either don't get a connect or even if I get connected they probably come up with answers like "we are not hiring" even when they clearly are hiring on job boards and on Indeed and other stuff. When I send cold emails I'd get no response, no replies.

I'm just trying to understand, as a new professional in the recruitment space, how you go ahead with business development in 2026 as a recruitment agency or as a recruiter.

Thanks in advance.

Keeping it vague for everyone's sake. I work in a completely different department at a healthcare related job that tends to hire a lot of people. I have no direct experience in recruiting or HR but I've expressed interest and we'll be having a conversation next week.

Anything in particular I should prepare for? Either with the interview or the work itself. Thank you!

I have a client I've been working with since January on a CFO hire. It's now May. They have decided they want to hire a candidate for a 3 month trial rather than committing to a W2. He may or may not be hired at the end of the trial. I charged them an upfront fee but the remainder for the original retainer contract is due upon hire (W2). Since they want to do this 3 month trial, how do I bill them?

Curious what benchmark others use. Is there a standard number of weeks before you pause and completely rethink your sourcing approach?

and when you do, what usually changes? the JD, the salary band, the channels? or something else?

I am looking to speak with recruiters! At the moment I'm working on a project focusing on young people who are struggling to find work in their desired field. Specifically I am wondering what the level of candidate is like at the moment, is there something you regularly see in unsuccessful applicants things like this! If there are any recruiters who could spare any time to speak with me about this it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

At one point our hiring process became so chaotic that even I wouldn’t have wanted to apply to our company.

We had auto-rejection emails firing at 2am, interviews getting rescheduled three times, a take-home assignment that somehow became longer than actual paid work and one poor candidate waiting 18 days for feedback because two managers “forgot to reply”

NGL hiring urgency makes smart people do incredibly dumb things.

Everyone kept saying: “We need to find employees ASAP.”

So naturally we added more interview rounds, more approvals, and more confusion. Peak corporate logic.

The moment that really hit me was when a candidate politely withdrew and said:

“This process feels stressful in a way that’s hard to explain.”

Honestly fair.

I think a lot of companies underestimate how visible internal chaos becomes during hiring.

Candidates can instantly tell when a team is overwhelmed, disconnected, or making decisions reactively.

The fastest way to lose good applicants is acting like speed matters more than basic respect

Hey all,

I know how much a LinkedIn Recruiter light version costs but don’t know the price of full corporate license. I did use the product as my employer got me a license. So, I’m curious to know how much does it actually cost.

Can you please share your cost and how many inmail credits do you get per month?

Cheers

I am just curious, how do recruiters manage email volume? Do you have templates or do you write from scratch? And also, do you engage in back and forth or ignore unnecessary exchanges?

5 years solo recruiting and honestly the hardest part now isn’t sourcing or closing candidates. It’s keeping all the moving pieces in my head.

Every search has:

different client dynamics

candidates at different stages

random promises/follow-ups from old calls

stuff waiting on feedback

conversations spread across email, LinkedIn, ATS notes, Slack, etc.

At 4-5 searches I could mostly remember everything. At 15 active searches, half the battle is just reconstructing context before every call.

My ATS helps, but real life always moves faster than the notes stay updated.

Curious what systems other solo recruiters actually use here. Are you doing detailed notes? call summaries? daily refreshes? Or does everyone just become really good at scrambling before meetings?

I’ve noticed people use talent acquisition and recruiting interchangeably, but the way teams approach them can feel pretty different.

Recruiting feels more immediate: role opens, source candidates, screen, hire.

Talent acquisition feels more long-term: employer brand, pipelines, relationships, workforce planning, candidate experience.

For a small business trying to build a strong team, I can see arguments for both. Smaller companies often need people in seats quickly, but constantly hiring reactively can get expensive fast if turnover starts creeping in.

For those working in recruiting or hiring for smaller teams, which approach has actually worked better for you?

Have you seen better results focusing on filling roles quickly, or investing more time into long-term talent pipelines?

I recruit for mid to senior level ops and PM roles. Been noticing a pattern over the last 2 years. The candidates who crush the interview, perfectly polished answers, great energy, tick every box, are the ones managers come to me about 8 months later saying something's off. Meanwhile the candidates who were solid but less rehearsed, maybe a bit awkward, sometimes more honest about what they don't want, tend to stick longer.

My theory is the polished candidates are really good at performing in any environment but not necessarily good at filtering for the right one. They get hired everywhere but only thrive somewhere. Am I overthinking this or is there something to it?

Where do you feel your time is most wasted?

View Poll

I've been on both ends of this and it's hard. 

When you're evaluating external recruiters, the pitch is almost always identical. Deep network, quick turnaround, great relationships with candidates, full focus. None of that is verifiable upfront and by the time you figure out someone isn't a fit you've already lost weeks on a search that went nowhere. 

I'm curious what signals people actually look for. Not what recruiters say about themselves but the things you can observe or check that actually tell you whether someone will be useful before you hand them a role.

Its really hard to judge whether being concise or giving full context works better in real interviews.

Linkedin renewal coming up. They are pushing the rps+ and hiring assistant. I was not impressed with the demo and my account manager is not great. Anyone use it ? Honest feedback please. We are a 2 person operation. Do the bd functions work well ? Is the AI sourcing decent ? I did not see too much but it was a short demo.

I work in an online betting company based in Paris, I'm the CFO. We've grown fast in the past 18 months (went from 30 to 80 people, mostly 25-30 year olds) and we've been losing people faster than we'd like, exit interviews keep pointing to a lack of clarity on where they're going in the company. I've looked at a few tools already but most of them feel either way too enterprise-heavy or like a glorified timesheet. Looking for a talent management tool that helps us track employees, give them visibility on their career path, and also handle onboardings properly. Curious what's actually worked for you.

Rps+ and hiring assistamt

Linkedin renewal coming up. They are pushing the rps+ and hiring assistant. I was not impressed with the demo and my account manager is not great. Anyone use it ? Honest feedback please. We are a 2 person operation. Do the bd functions work well ? Is the AI sourcing decent ? I did not see too much but it was a short demo.

Also it is quite expensive for seat plus 3 job slots.

This might be a little premature but I’m building a web based site that would allow you to enter a job description and drop resumes, click submit and it will score candidates. The higher the score, the better the potential match. It bounces the experience on the resume off of the JD. I’m also building logic for potential job hoppers. You’ll be able to export into a CSV or Google Sheets. Going to target small to mid size companies.

I’ve been in TA/recruiting for quite a while and feel so many diamonds get missed. You post jobs, get 40-100 applicants. You go through the first half and ‘find’ enough candidates. This would allow you to see a quick snapshot and stack rank hi/low scores and go right to the resumes for the potential strong fits on paper.

Do you feel this would solve pain points for small/mid sized companies that hire/recruit pretty regularly that don’t have a solution because of software limitations?

***I’m not close to market just gauging how professionals feel about it***

I keep seeing recruiters using tools like Dripify, Expandi, Waalaxy and LinkedIn's crackdown seems to be getting more aggressive. Curious how widespread the actual account restriction problem is in practice, vs just a scare tactic to get you onto their paid products.