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The Resilient Recruiter

From Zero to $400K: How He Rebuilt a Recruitment Business

March 19 · 1 hr 22 min · Episode 305
0:00-1:22:06

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From $400K to Zero.

Then nothing for six months.

Harrison Wright launched his recruitment business and billed nearly $400,000 in his first six months.

Then the market turned.

Hiring froze. Searches disappeared. He was burning $30,000 a month just to stay afloat.

Most recruiters would respond by doing more.

More calls. More CVs. More pressure.

He did exactly that.

It didn’t work.

So he rebuilt the business.

Today, he runs a retained model with an interview-to-placement ratio of over 2:1 and clients worth more than $350,000 over time. After shifting into institutional crypto, he’s on track for $1.2M to $1.6M in 2025.

In this episode, we break down:

* What actually changed after the crash
* Why more activity wasn’t the answer
* How he qualifies candidates before a CV gets sent
* The process behind a 2:1 interview-to-placement ratio
* Why he doesn’t pitch the job on the first call
* How positioning attracts retained clients

Timestamps

Chapters

  • 00:00:00 Intro
  • 00:01:06 From zero to $400K in six months
  • 00:01:21 The crash: no revenue and $30K monthly burn
  • 00:09:26 Why the craft of recruiting has been lost
  • 00:13:17 The 2.16-to-1 interview-to-placement ratio
  • 00:15:14 The 90-minute candidate interview
  • 00:21:37 Why pitching first creates problems later
  • 00:27:14 Front-loading vs back-loading
  • 00:35:42 Building positioning from scratch
  • 00:45:50 Choosing the right clients
  • 00:49:10 The institutional crypto pivot
  • 01:00:46 What a retained proposal looks like

Not sure what's slowing your agency's growth? Take the free Recruitment Scorecard:
👉 https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard

Sponsors

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Trusted Voice Video
Trusted helps recruitment firms build high-quality candidate pipelines using video. If you're hiring or placing at scale, video can improve engagement, screening, and conversion.
👉 https://recruitmentcoach.com/video

Listen to the full episode:
https://recruitmentcoach.com/podcast/

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