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Comment by jonaf | Hacker News Reader

You can make $30,000 USD for placing a person??? I'm in the wrong line of work.

Eh it's like selling houses in San Francisco. You only do a few a year so the high commissions need to sustain you. Plus the market goes up and down and you need to save enough from commission to cover market downturns.

All that said really good recruiters are well paid.

... most recruiters who are just decent can place 3-5 candidates a month.

This is too generalized. When I recruited for finance/pharmacy easily get 10+/mn, at top tech company averaging 1-2/mn. It really depends on roles, for head hunters doing executive level positions they probably only fill a few a year because the search for one takes a long time.

3-5 a month is pretty optimistic. I wouldn't want people to think this and leave their jobs. If you do two a month you're probably doing quite well, especially if you're independent, but it's not easy as an independent to do volume.

20-25% of salary isn't uncommon, and salaries of 120 K in technology is seniorish developer range where I work (Philly and NYC). My business model is different now, but when I did pure contingency work a 30K fee wasn't uncommon.

Do you have to wait a certain period before you get paid?

Does this also work for in-house recruiters?

Quite fascinating area really.

Most clients require a guarantee, usually around 90 days. Sometimes pay terms are sooner, so theoretically you could have to refund a fee if a candidate leaves quickly and you don't replace them.

In-house recruiters are not usually paid fees like agency recruiters - they might get bonuses, but most in-house are paid mostly in salary with smaller performance bonus. Agency recruiters are usually paid little (sometimes nothing) in salary with most comp coming via commission.

This explains bad recruiter behavior, or at least much of it. Every deal might be 10-20K in the recruiter's pocket. For that amount of money, some people will do things they wouldn't normally do, and morals go out the window.

Thanks for the detailed answer! Appreciate it.

Yes you can. Its a great job when people are hiring, you have lots of income. When the jobs vanish during a recession, you don't make any money and starve.

If you are able to manage the up and down cycle, its great.

I've been through two periods of it being bad (2000 and the later recession) but I managed to do well enough. Lots of recruiters leave the market during the down cycles, and when it's up we get tons of newbies. You only need a phone/email and a LinkedIn account to jump in the field at the lowest level.

I'm working on embedded linux devices as a software tester and part technical writer, however, I have managed to get around 6 of my friends and ex-coworkers positions in the past 12 months, with another three going with counter-, or other offers. This year I have realized that I've become a lot of peoples' go-to person for creating better CVs, LinkedIn profiles and cover letters for applications.

Living in the EU is somewhat limiting in the legal and financial sense, because I am unsure about cross-country pay-outs, recruitment and legislation. Do you happen to have sources where I could learn more about these things? I might just make it a side-business to my existing one to refer people as a recruiter agency, not simply via already in-house acquaintances (which yield mediocre referral bonuses in many cases).

Funny enough, I also have a second business where I do resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn optimizations/reviews, and career consults for people who need help. I don't know the laws of the EU regarding recruitment, but I know historically recruiters at least in the UK were a bit more respected than here in the US - not sure if that attitude has changed or not.

I'd go on LinkedIn and find a recruiter in your area - they may be willing to talk to you about the business. My blog (jobtipsforgeeks.com) has a handful of articles on recruiting topics as well.

Never worked in the field but have heard that three months salary is a typical commission. If the recruiter is working for a firm I guess some of that goes to the firm but not sure how much.

25% is towards the high end mostly. If the recruiter works for a firm the agency likely keeps most of the fee. I worked for two agencies before going independent and IIRC kept 15-50% of fees, usually on a progressive scale. So you may start at 15 and get to 50 retroactive if you hit $n in fees in a year. I remember n was ~500K at my first job in the late 90s. So there, hitting 500K meant 250K in commissions.

What do you think executive recruiting firms charge?

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