The Lone Recruiter

Brett Clemenson

Welcome to the Lone Recruiter Podcast!

Each week, we bring you short, fast and high energy podcasts designed to give you the motivation, mindset & resilience you need to be your best recruitment self.

So grab a coffee, get comfortable, join us and let’s take your recruitment career to the next level.

Play

Open in

24 episodes
a few times a week
Avg 9 min
English

Episodes 24

Newest Oldest Longest

All20 Unplayed20 In progress0 Played0

Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

S4 · E344
Sunday · 8 min
Ep 344 - Would I Believe You’ll Hit Your Goals if I Filmed You for 24 Hours?
If I followed you around with a camera for 24 hours, would I believe you were going to hit your targets this month? It's a bloody good question. And if you're consistently falling short of your goals, you might not like the answer. Here's the thing. Most recruiters have a pretty good idea of what they need to do to succeed. But knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things. We track our calls, interviews, placements and to-do lists. But what about all the time we're wasting? The unnecessary conversations, the scrolling, the distractions and the 20-minute chats that should've taken two? In today's ep, I'm challenging you to take a proper look at how you're spending your working day. And I've got a ridiculously simple exercise that'll show you exactly where your time is going. 👉 Why self-awareness is one of the most valuable skills you can develop as a recruiter. 👉 The hidden time-wasters that could be costing you placements. 👉 My 15-minute tracking exercise that'll expose exactly how productive you really are. 👉 How to identify the activities that actually move you closer to your targets. 👉 A simple calendar hack to protect your most productive working hours. You might be shocked by what you discover. But once you know where your time is going, you can start doing something about it.
S4 · E343
October 7 · 5 min
Ep 343 - Teaching Your Client Best Practice For Interviewing
Are you prepping your candidates for interviews but forgetting to prep your clients? Here's my simple piece of advice I gave a client that completely changed the way she interviews candidates and helped her achieve better hiring outcomes. The idea is simple: stop grilling candidates in the first interview and start selling the dream. 👉 First interview: Sell the company, the opportunity, the projects, the team and the culture 👉 Second interview: Drill down into technical skills and make sure they’re the right fit 👉 Then: References, offer, close When a great candidate walks out of that first interview thinking, “I want that job,” the entire recruitment process becomes easier. As recruiters, we spend plenty of time coaching candidates. But are you also coaching your clients on how to run a better hiring process? This ep lays out what I think is best practice for training your clients, improving the interview experience and ultimately increasing your chances of making the placement.
S4 · E342
September 30 · 16 min
Ep 342 - Turning Recruitment Expertise Into a New Revenue Stream with Rachel and Shannon from Stitch Partners
What if recruitment isn’t always the answer? Brett is joined by Rachel and Shannon from Stitch Partners to unpack their move from a traditional recruitment agency into a broader advisory model. After more than 20 years in the industry, they realised they were already helping clients with far more than filling jobs. The difference? They decided to start treating that expertise as a service in its own right. Tune in for: 👉 Why recruitment isn’t always the solution to a client’s problem 👉 How to turn the advice you’re already giving away into a paid service 👉 Moving beyond contingent recruitment and creating new revenue streams 👉 Using role audits, competitor analysis and retention strategies to add more value 👉 Why you sometimes need to fix the problem before filling the vacant seat 👉 How advisory work can make your business less reliant on placements 👉 Becoming embedded in your client’s business instead of being seen as just another supplier 👉 Creating “sticky” client relationships that are harder for competitors to break into If you’re already giving your clients a heap of advice for free, this one is worth a listen.
S4 · E341
September 27 · 6 min
Ep 341 - The Quarter-End Reset Every Recruiter Needs
You can’t sprint forever. Recruitment works well in bursts — 10 or 11 weeks of pushing hard, followed by a chance to stop, recharge and reset. So if you’re coming to the end of a quarter feeling depleted, this ep is your reminder to take the break. Book the week off. Switch off properly. Touch some grass. Put your feet in the sand and unwind. But before you clock off, there are a few things to get sorted. I run through my four-step quarter-end reset: 👉 Take the break and actually recharge. 👉 Close, close, close! Tighten every deal you can before decision-makers disappear. 👉 Make your bed for next quarter by getting your jobs, ads, emails and marketing working while you’re away. 👉 Clear the boring stuff - invoicing, CRM, pipeline, inbox and all those niggling jobs sitting on your to-do list. Do it properly and you can come back from your break rested, recharged and ready to hit the ground running. Because the last thing you want is to spend the first few weeks of a new quarter trying to get yourself back into gear. Make all your deals come true.
S4 · E340
September 23 · 8 min
Ep 340 - Top 5 Recruitment Rituals
Recruiters are a superstitious bunch. Placement bells. Lucky songs. Weird office rituals. Things that make absolutely no logical difference to whether a deal lands… but somehow become sacred agency traditions anyway. Today I’m counting down five of the best, weirdest and funniest recruitment rituals I’ve come across over the years. 👉 The placement song that announces to the entire office you’ve made another deal 👉 Why one agency ditched the placement bell for a FULL-SIZED GONG 👉 The candidate shrine designed to send good juju to anyone on interview 👉 The deliberately hideous “last fee” trophy that gets passed from recruiter to recruiter 👉 And my number one: the interview candle… which apparently resulted in melted computer monitors 😂 Some of these are ridiculous. Some I genuinely want to introduce and some are probably an OH&S nightmare. But now I want to hear yours. What weird recruitment superstition, ritual or celebration does your agency have?
S4 · E339
September 20 · 6 min
Ep 339 - How to Set a New Recruiter Up for Success
Hiring a great recruiter is only half the job. What you do with them in those first few weeks can make all the difference. I’m not a fan of the old “sink or swim” approach. Throwing someone a laptop, a desk and telling them to go build a market from scratch might show you what they’re made of, but it also creates a massive amount of unnecessary pressure. Instead, I believe in setting people up for quick wins. In this ep, I break down exactly how we’ve done that with Dana, who joined us around six weeks ago. We gave her a small slice of a market, existing client relationships and live jobs, then let her do what we hired her to do: recruit. The result? Around $75K in billings in her first few weeks, a brand new client and growing confidence with every deal. 👉 Why “sink or swim” is a terrible onboarding strategy 👉 How quick wins build confidence and momentum 👉 Why you should reduce the mental load for new hires 👉 How to gradually take the training wheels off 👉 Why I build the desk, clients and market BEFORE hiring into it 👉 How this approach can help you scale your recruitment business If you’re hiring experienced recruiters and want them billing faster, this is how I’d do it.
S4 · E338
September 16 · 4 min
Ep 338 - Your Reputation Starts With How You Treat Everyone
How do you treat someone when you don’t think they’re the person you need to impress? A conversation with Beth in my office got me thinking about the way some people treat support staff, EAs, receptionists and the people standing between them and the person they actually want to speak to. Most people are brilliant. Some, however, are dismissive, abrupt or just plain rude. And here’s the thing: it gets back to the person you’re trying to impress. This is particularly relevant in recruitment, where it’s easy to become so transactional that you start viewing people as obstacles rather than humans simply doing their jobs. That EA you’re trying to get past? They organise the CEO’s calendar. They speak to them every day. They have more influence over how you’re perceived than you might realise. So today’s message is very simple: treat everyone with respect, not just the people you want something from. Because people talk. And how you treat the people around someone says a lot more about you than how you treat the person you’re trying to impress.
S4 · E337
September 13 · 6 min
Ep 337 - What IKEA Can Teach Us About AI and the Future of Work
What happens when AI starts automating people’s jobs? IKEA has given us a pretty interesting answer. Rather than simply using automation as an opportunity to slash headcount, they re-skilled thousands of customer service employees into new roles. For me, it’s a brilliant example of what AI integration could actually look like when businesses bring their people along for the ride. It also got me thinking about what we’re doing in our own businesses. I’ve started telling my team that part of their job is to automate the mundane and repeatable parts of their role. I don’t want people hiding from AI because they’re worried they’re making themselves redundant. I want them actively looking for ways to use it, and being rewarded for doing so. Because the opportunity here isn’t necessarily to achieve more by continually adding headcount. It’s to dramatically increase the productivity of the people you already have. And that changes recruitment too. As AI takes care of more routine work, the skills that become increasingly valuable are the ones that are hardest to automate: judgement, emotional intelligence, adaptability and genuine human connection. AI is here. The question is whether we use it simply to replace people, or use it to make our people significantly better.
S4 · E336
September 9 · 30 min
Ep 336 - The High Performance Health Check with Luke Maslin
What if you’re doing all the “right” things for your health, but you’re still not operating at your best? I train five days a week. I eat pretty consciously. I supplement. I don’t drink a hell of a lot. On paper, I’m doing alright. But a lot of it is still guesswork. So I decided to find out what’s actually going on under the hood. In this ep, I’m joined by health and high performance coach Luke Maslin from Total Performance Living, who recently put me through a seriously comprehensive health assessment. We’re talking around 100 blood markers, a DEXA scan, body composition, blood pressure, respiratory testing and a deep dive into my health, lifestyle and habits. And the results were pretty bloody interesting. We unpack what my testing revealed around inflammation, liver function, cholesterol, vitamin deficiencies, thyroid function, testosterone, blood sugar, body composition and more. But more importantly, Luke explains why you can’t just look at one dodgy marker and try to fix it in isolation. We get into: 👉 Why “normal” blood test results don’t necessarily mean optimal health 👉 What my results actually revealed 👉 Why free testosterone can tell a very different story to total testosterone 👉 The problem with jumping straight to supplements, peptides or testosterone 👉 Why sleep, stress, breathing and recovery come first 👉 Luke’s “pyramid of problems” and how he prioritises what to fix 👉 Why health is the foundation of sustainable high performance 👉 What all of this means for your energy, focus and performance on a recruitment desk Recruitment is a high-performance job. You need energy. You need concentration. You need to be sharp on the phone. And you need to be able to do it consistently. You can keep pushing yourself for a while without looking after the foundations. But eventually, something gives. This ep is a fascinating look at what happens when you stop guessing and actually get the data.
S4 · E335
September 6 · 4 min
Ep 335 - Stop Picking Up the Phone! Why Recruiters Should Let It Ring
Today, I’m giving you permission to do something that sounds completely wrong for a recruiter: don’t pick up the phone. Hear me out. We’re trained to answer calls. Client calls, candidate calls, callbacks... the phone rings, we pick it up. But what happens when you answer and you’re not actually ready for the conversation? I recently watched a colleague do exactly that. A callback came through, they couldn’t quite remember what they needed to discuss, but they answered anyway. The result? A clunky conversation spent fumbling around trying to remember the point of the call. And it made me think: why did you have to answer it right then? Tune in for: 👉 Why you don’t need to answer every call immediately 👉 The difference between being responsive and being prepared 👉 Why every recruitment call should have a clear purpose 👉 How 20–30 seconds of preparation can completely change a conversation 👉 Why letting a call ring out can actually make you a better recruiter If a client or candidate calls and you’re not crystal clear on what you need from that conversation, let it ring. Pull up your notes. Gather your thoughts. Know what you want to achieve. Then call them straight back. The goal isn’t to spend less time on the phone. It’s to make the calls you do have count. As always, have an amazing day and make all your deals come true.
S4 · E334
September 2 · 19 min
Ep 334 - What Recruiters Need to Know Right Now with SEEK Chief Economist Blair Chapman
The Australian jobs market is slow, tougher and uncertain right now. But what does that actually mean for us as recruiters? I’m joined by SEEK Chief Economist Blair Chapman to cut through the headlines and look at what the data is really telling us about the Australian employment market. Employment is still growing, but at a much slower rate than we’ve become accustomed to. Job switching is at historic lows, candidates are more hesitant to move, businesses are watching costs and some sectors are facing a much tougher outlook than others. But it’s certainly not all doom and gloom. There are still pockets of strong demand, and some major demographic shifts could create significant opportunities for recruiters over the next five years. We cover: 👉 Why employment growth has slowed and what that means for recruiters 👉 The industries currently doing it toughest 👉 Where Blair is seeing stronger demand and growth opportunities 👉 What’s happening with advertised salaries 👉 Why job switching could be one of the most important numbers for recruiters to watch 👉 How AI and offshoring are affecting the employment market 👉 What needs to happen before the market really turns a corner 👉 Why Australia’s ageing workforce could create a huge replacement market 👉 The labour market indicators I’d be watching if I were running a recruitment agency There’s a lot of noise around the jobs market right now. Blair brings the numbers, but more importantly, helps translate those numbers into what they could actually mean for your recruitment desk.
S4 · E333
August 30 · 16 min
Ep 333 - The 4 Stages of Mastery: Where Are You?
Have you ever felt like you KNOW how to do something, but it still takes a huge amount of effort to get it right? That’s where the four stages of mastery come in. In this episode, I break down the journey from having absolutely no idea what you’re doing to reaching the point where a skill becomes almost automatic. For recruiters, this can apply to everything from interviewing and taking a job brief to BD, closing deals, leadership and eventually running your own agency. 👉 The four stages of mastery 👉 Why being aware of your incompetence is actually progress 👉 The frustrating stage where you’re good, but it still takes serious brainpower 👉 What true mastery looks like 👉 How I’ve reached “autopilot” in recruitment after 20 years 👉 Why I’m definitely NOT there yet when it comes to leadership Knowing where you sit on the mastery scale can make the learning process a whole lot less frustrating and give you something tangible to work towards.
S4 · E332
August 26 · 17 min
Ep 332 - What Top Recruiters Want From Agencies in 2026 with Andrea Collins
The recruitment market is changing, but where are the real opportunities right now? Today I’m joined by Andrea Collins from Connecting Recruiters, she has spent more than 20 years in recruitment and the last decade specialising in Rec2Rec. She recruits across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, giving her a pretty unique view of what’s happening inside agencies across the country. We talk about what senior recruiters are looking for now, why some agencies are attracting great people while others are losing them, and what the recruitment market could look like by the time the next Census rolls around. 👉 Why senior recruiters are looking for a career “rebirth” 👉 The growing divide between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane 👉 Why executive search is booming 👉 What recruiters now expect from AI, automation and productivity tools 👉 The surprising link between external PR and attracting great recruiters 👉 Why relationships are becoming even MORE valuable in an AI-driven market 👉 The graduate recruiter shortage and what it means for agency growth 👉 The commission structures keeping top billers from going out on their own 👉 Why big agencies are losing talent to boutiques 👉 Andrea’s prediction for recruitment in 2031 There are some really interesting shifts happening beneath the surface of our industry right now, and Andrea has a front-row seat to them. If you’re a recruiter, recruitment leader or agency owner wondering where the market is heading next, this one is well worth a listen.
S4 · E331
August 23 · 5 min
Ep 331 - Need a New Recruitment Market? Check the Census!
The 2026 Census has added 349 new occupations. So naturally, my recruiter brain went straight to one question: Where's the opportunity? If you're looking for a new recruitment market, the Census could give you some very interesting clues. Tune in for: 👉 Why 349 new occupations creates potential new recruitment markets 👉 What changing industries and technology mean for recruiters 👉 How to spot genuine demand rather than simply chasing job volume 👉 Why national skills shortages can point towards strong recruitment opportunities 👉 How to find markets where recruiter competition is relatively low 👉 Why the best market isn't necessarily the biggest one 👉 How to use publicly available data to research your next desk If you're looking for a new market, feeling stuck in your current desk or trying to find an area where you can build a competitive advantage, this episode is for you. Don't just find a market with jobs. Find a market with opportunity.
S4 · E330
August 19 · 4 min
Ep 330 - Stop Asking “When?”: Get the Interview Booked Faster
This simple recruitment tactic can significantly shorten the time between getting a client interview request and actually getting the interview booked. The key idea is simple: don’t ask “when?” Instead, know your candidate’s availability and give the client a specific option, ideally today or tomorrow. Rather than asking, “When can you meet them?”, try, “I’ve got them available at 3pm today. Can you make that work?” This small change creates urgency, keeps momentum, and stops interviews from being pushed into the end of the week or even the following week. I also explain why recruiters need to take control of the scheduling process and why asking an innocent question like “when are you free?” can unintentionally slow the entire deal down. No when. Try it on your next interview and see how much faster you can get things moving.
S4 · E329
August 16 · 12 min
Ep 329 - Hit Your Target. Take Friday Off!
What if your best incentive wasn’t more money, but more time? In today's ep, I sit down with Zakary Nash, Co-Founder and Director of HarperLloyd Recruitment, to unpack one of the most interesting incentives I’ve come across in recruitment. Hit your quarterly target, and you earn Fridays off for the entire next quarter. It sounds simple, but the psychology behind it is fascinating. Zakary shares: 👉 Why HarperLloyd introduced the four-day incentive 👉 How consultants are using their Fridays differently 👉 Why time can be a more powerful motivator than commission 👉 What happened to performance once Fridays became something worth earning 👉 How the incentive is helping people create more space for family, travel and life outside recruitment For me, this is a great example of thinking differently about what actually motivates people.
S4 · E328
August 12 · 6 min
Ep 328 - Redefining Success: When Your Role Changes
I’ve spent 20 years measuring my success from behind a recruitment desk. Placements. Revenue. Generation. Deals. But now my role is changing. As the agency and the podcast grow, I’m moving away from full-throttle desk recruitment and into more of a leadership role. I’m not disappearing from recruitment. I still love the clients, the candidates and the deals. But I can’t keep doing everything myself. And that’s where things get interesting... 👉 The metrics that made me successful on the desk aren’t necessarily the metrics that will make me successful as a leader. 👉 Career transitions are rarely as smooth as they look from the outside. Your habits, routines and definition of a “good day” all have to change. 👉 Whether you’re moving into leadership, starting a business, taking on staff or simply stepping into a bigger role, you need to redefine what success looks like for where you are now. The question is simple: What does success look like when the role you’re in starts to change? Because as your responsibilities, priorities and role evolve, the way you measure a successful day needs to evolve with them.
S2 · E327
August 9 · 8 min
Ep 327 - The Soy Sauce Effect: The 1% Improvements That Create Massive Recruitment Results
What do a packet of soy sauce, a door handle, and recruitment have in common? I know it sounds strange, but this week I found myself thinking about how the smallest details can have the biggest impact. I grabbed my usual sushi lunch, something I do Monday to Thursday because it’s predictable and easy for my specific dietary needs. But when I got back to my desk, I realised they’d forgotten my gluten-free soy sauce. The sushi itself was good but the meal was not as tasty. That tiny five-cent component completely changed the experience. It got me thinking about something a property developer once told me. When you build a home, the biggest investment goes into things people never see: the foundations, the structure, the materials behind the walls. But what sells the property? The things people touch and interact with. A loose door handle can make someone question the quality of an entire building. Recruitment is exactly the same. You can have the best systems, the best candidates, and the best results in the market. But if you miss the small moments that shape a client or candidate’s experience, that’s what people remember. In this episode, I challenge you to find the “soy sauces and door handles” in your recruitment business: What small frustrations are you creating without realising? What simple improvements could have a huge impact? Where are you creating doubt when you could be creating confidence? What parts of your process need a little more attention? Because in recruitment, people don’t just buy the outcome. They buy the experience of getting there. Sometimes the biggest competitive advantage isn’t doing more. It’s getting the small things right.
S4 · E326
August 2 · 12 min
Ep 326 - Inside a 10% Upfront Retained Recruitment Model With Jack Creith from Yakka Solutions
Retained recruitment is something many recruiters talk about, but few fully commit to. In this ep, I chat with Jack Creith from Yakka Solutions about the unconventional retained model that transformed his recruitment business: 10% upfront and 90% on delivery. Rather than following the traditional retained search structure, Jack created a model that is simple, low friction for clients and still creates the commitment needed to deliver exceptional results. We unpack how he developed the model, why the 10% upfront payment acts as a filter for serious clients, and the mindset shift recruiters need to make when moving away from contingency recruitment. This episode is a must-listen for recruiters looking to improve client relationships, increase commitment and build a more valuable recruitment business. Tune in for: 👉 How Jack transitioned to 100% retained recruitment 👉 Why he chose a 10% upfront fee 👉 The psychology behind getting clients to commit 👉 Why confidence is the biggest hurdle for recruiters selling retained 👉 How small wins create belief in your model A practical conversation about building a recruitment business around trust, value and commitment.
S4 · E325
July 29 · 7 min
Ep 325 - If I Had to Start a Recruitment Desk Tomorrow, This Is Exactly What I’d Do!
If I had to build a recruitment desk from scratch today, this is exactly how I'd do it. One of the biggest mistakes recruiters make when starting a new market is casting the net too wide. They pick an industry, start calling people and hope the opportunities reveal themselves. That approach wastes time and confidence. In this ep, I walk you through the exact framework I use to identify profitable recruitment markets before making a single business development call. It's a simple process that helps you find high-demand niches with lower recruiter competition, so you can build momentum faster. I'll show you how to narrow your market, validate demand using SEEK and LinkedIn Jobs, identify where the work is piling up, and test opportunities before committing your time. Tune in for: 👉 Why most recruiters choose markets the wrong way 👉 How to niche down to the most profitable opportunities 👉 The four filters I use before making any calls 👉 How to analyse SEEK and LinkedIn Jobs strategically 👉 Why recruiter competition matters just as much as client demand 👉 The fastest way to validate a new market before investing months into it If you're launching a new desk, changing specialisations or simply wondering where the next opportunity is, this episode will save you months of trial and error.

Showing 1–20 of 24 episodes