The Elite Recruiter Podcast
The Elite Recruiter Podcast is hosted by executive recruiter Benjamin Mena and focuses on the stories, strategies, and mindsets of top performers in the recruiting industry. Each episode provides tactical insights on building and scaling a recruiting business, including tools, tech stacks, sourcing strategies, daily habits, and lessons from failure. The show is aimed at agency recruiters, staffing professionals, and executive search consultants who want to learn from the best in the field.
Episodes
$500 In The Bank. $870,000 Billed One Year Later
Finish The Year Strong 2026 is coming September 28 through October 5, and it is packed with sessions exactly like this one. Register free now: https://recruiters-finish-the-year-strong.heysummit.com/
The Recruiting Agents Workshop with Seb Sharp runs August 25 and 26. Build an autonomous lead agent, a placement agent, and connect your entire tech stack, with recordings, templates, and a week
How To Become A Talent Engineer (Recruiting's New AI Role)
Has AI actually helped you make more placements this year, or has it just been noise? Before you dive in, this is your last call for The Recruiting Agents Workshop with Seb Sharp, August 25 and 26. Two live build-along sessions where you will create an autonomous lead agent, a placement agent, and connect your entire tech stack, plus recordings, templates, and a week of Slack access to Seb af
$1.5M To $6M While Everyone Watched Their Inbox Die
4X Growth While Everyone Watched Their Inbox Die.
Want to actually make money with AI instead of just talking about it? Join me and Seb Sharp for The Recruiting Agents Workshop, August 25th and 26th. Two live build-along sessions where you will create your own autonomous lead agent and placement agent, connect your entire tech stack, and walk away with recordings, templates, and a week of Sl
How To Build A $1.5 Million Desk With No College Degree
Before we get into it: The Recruiting Agents Workshop with Seb Sharp is happening August 25th and 26th. Two live build-along sessions where you will build an autonomous lead agent, a placement agent, and wire your entire tech stack together, with recordings, templates, and a full week of Slack access to Seb included. Sign up here: https://the-recruiting-agents-workshop.heysummit.com/
This ep
The Inner Work That Made Her A Million Dollar Biller
Recruiters, do not limp into December. The Finish The Year Strong 2026 virtual summit runs September 28 through October 5, with the top producers and leaders in recruiting, including Pinnacle Society's Michelle Flynn, sharing exactly what is working right now to close the year with momentum. Grab your spot: https://recruiters-finish-the-year-strong.heysummit.com/
This episode is brought to y
How To Become The Recruiter AI Recommends
Right now a hiring manager is typing "accounting recruiter near me" into ChatGPT, and somebody is coming up. Steve Gipson's argument is that the recruiter who gets named is almost never the best one. It is simply the most visible one.
Benjamin sat in a room at the Pinnacle Society conference adding up numbers as top billers casually mentioned inbound work arriving through their websites. Two
How To Find Your Real Driver. It Was Never Money
Across more than 5,000 recruiters, Michelle Flynn has run the same values exercise. Not once, not a single time, has money come up as a core value. So if money is not your real driver, what is? And what happens to your career, your business, and your health when you finally find out?
🎯 Free registration is open for Finish The Year Strong 2026, the virtual summit for recruiters running Septem
20 Placements a Month Put Her in the Hospital
Michelle Flynn was living the recruitment dream. Twenty placements a month as a solo recruiter. Working 9:30 to 4:30. Every single client on exclusive, no staff, no cold calls, and a seat inside her clients' offices where offers closed almost on autopilot. Then, three months after her wedding, at age 39, she woke up with a severe pain down the left side of her chest and hit the floor. Her hus
He's Seen Billions Of Recruiting Messages: What's Dead And What Wins In 2026
The AI Recruiting Summit 2026 is happening now with free live sessions. Grab your spot: https://ai-recruiting-summit-2026.heysummit.com/
This episode is brought to you in partnership with SourceWhale.
Most recruiters will send outreach this week that is already dead and never know it. Benjamin Mena sits down with Dougie Loan, the man behind billions of recruiting messages at SourceWhale, to
How To Build A Multi-Million-Dollar Recruiting Firm From Zero
The AI Recruiting Summit 2026 is happening now through July 20th, and registration is free for every live session. Recruiting engineers, operators, and recruiters actually running AI on their desks are showing what is working behind the scenes. Do not miss it. Register here: https://ai-recruiting-summit-2026.heysummit.com/
This episode is brought to you by Atlas. The resume never tells the f
How To Get 3 Hours Of Real Work Done Before Lunch
Gary Stauble started his firm in 1998 and almost immediately lost control of his mornings. Circumstances at home meant he could not rely on being at his desk on any given day. He had less time than his competition, and he was not hitting his goals.
So he stopped measuring hours and started measuring what the hours produced. He compressed his workday, front-loaded everything that mattered i
How To Build A $1.3 Million AI Recruiting Desk
The AI Recruiting Summit 2026 kicks off July 13th and runs through July 20th, and this episode is your preview of exactly what you will see there. Live sessions are free, so you can pop in and out around your desk. If you want the replays, grab the VIP option or join the Elite Recruiter Community, where every summit replay lives permanently. Register now at https://ai-recruiting-summit-2026.h
How To Build A Million Dollar Biller. Danny Cahill.
In this second part of a two part conversation, Danny Cahill takes Benjamin Mena behind the scenes of how he builds million dollar billers, why AI is quietly turning recruiters into commodities, and the one skill he says you cannot teach.
This episode is brought to you by Atlas, the AI first recruitment platform built to eliminate admin and turn every candidate conversation into something yo
Danny Cahill On Building A 40 Year Career. (Pt 1)
Danny Cahill is one of the biggest names in the history of the recruiting industry, and in this first part of a two part conversation he sits down with Benjamin Mena to unpack forty years of building a firm, surviving every disruption thrown at him, and developing recruiters who last entire careers.
This episode is brought to you by Atlas, the AI first recruitment platform built to eliminate
How To Become A Million Dollar Biller
Half the year is gone. That single fact is why Benjamin Mena pulled this talk out of the Elite Recruiter Community and put it in the feed. It is a reset, a line in the sand, and a challenge to decide right now what the rest of the year is going to look like.
Brent Orsuga has spent 23 years in recruiting, the last 16 in logistics and supply chain, and 11 of those years running his own firm, P
Retained Masterclass Pt 2: The Dollars Are In Delivery
Most recruiters think AI is coming for their job. Allie Milbrath thinks it's coming for one kind of recruiter — the one whose value was sending LinkedIn messages faster than the person next to them. If that was ever the whole game, she says you should be worried. If it wasn't, this episode is the way out.
This is Part 1 of a two-part retained search masterclass. Allie Milbrath of the Quinn R
Going Retained Masterclass Part 1 with Allie Milbrath
Most recruiters think AI is coming for their job. Allie Milbrath thinks it's coming for one kind of recruiter — the one whose value was sending LinkedIn messages faster than the person next to them. If that was ever the whole game, she says you should be worried. If it wasn't, this episode is the way out.
This is Part 1 of a two-part retained search masterclass. Allie Milbrath of the Quinn R
Your Best Biller Costs You $5 Million.
Your best biller is the person bringing in the most money. So how could promoting them be the most expensive mistake your firm ever makes?
That is where Benjamin Mena starts with Duncan Taylor, a healthcare staffing veteran who has spent more than 30 years on the executive side of recruiting and built his career around one unusual specialty: recruiting for recruiting companies. Duncan lays
The NFL & Forbes 400 Hire Her. Here's Why
She runs a three-person team. She places 7 to 12 people a month. She charges 18% of annual salary — right in line with the market. And somehow she's the preferred childcare provider for the LA Rams, the LA Chargers, and a meaningful slice of the Forbes 400.
There's no SDR. There are no paid ads. She's not on LinkedIn. Every deal is referred or inbound. After 20 years.
Rebecca Stewart is the
The 60% of Recruiters Who'll Quietly Sink Your Agency. Part 2
In Part 1, Tom Kelly walked us through how EVONA scaled from four founders to 80 recruiters in three years, then deliberately cut back to 30 — and per-head revenue doubled.
In Part 2, he hands over the framework that explains how he manages the leaner team. And it starts with a number most agency owners have never been forced to confront.
If you haven't heard Part 1 yet, listen to that
$40M in Fees. Then Cut 50 Recruiters to Save It. Part 1
Tom Kelly scaled EVONA from four bootstrapped founders in a tiny Bristol office to eighty recruiters in three years. Then he made the call most agency owners never make. He cut the team back to thirty. And in doing it, per-head revenue doubled.
This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation that pulls apart exactly how that happened.
Brought to you by Atlas. The AI-first recruitment platfo
$800K From Zero in 1 Year. AI Ran the BD
Most recruiters think AI is coming for someone else's desk. Riece Keck isn't so sure. Two years ago he said AI wouldn't replace great recruiters, but it would replace the mediocre ones sooner than anyone wanted to admit. He still stands by it, and he thinks we're a lot closer now than we were then.
He's also taking the stage at the AI Recruiting Summit 2026 to go even deeper on this, so if t
7 Contractors in 4 Weeks From Clients You Already Have
Most recruiters treat their client list like a closed account. You made the perm placement, the fee hit, and now you wait six months until they need you again. Dawson Henis looked at that same client list and saw six figures of recurring revenue nobody was collecting, so he picked up the phone.
In this episode, Dawson, the founder of the Atlanta-based Henis Group, walks Benjamin Mena throug
Laid Off at 48. Zero Clients. On Track for $19.4M in 3 Years
Steve Anderson was a milkman in South Carolina before he picked up a phone in healthcare recruiting. Twenty-five years later, he got laid off at 48 — part of a 1,500-person RIF — with five daughters, a mortgage, and no plan B.
Three months in, they pitched their first investor. He told them they were idiots and hung up. That call is the reason Optigy exists in its current form
This ep
No AI, No CRM — $120K in 6 Weeks on a Spreadsheet
She launched her firm on January 12th. Six weeks later she'd billed $120,000 — working off an Excel spreadsheet, a phone, and zero AI. While most of the industry is convinced the next placement is one shiny tool away, Lauren Lehman quietly proved the opposite, and this conversation breaks down exactly how she did it.
Before we get into it — this episode is brought to you by Atlas, the AI-fir
Scott Love: Why 99% of Recruiters Fail at Business Development
What separates the recruiters billing seven figures from the ones who plateau year after year? According to Scott Love, only one out of a hundred recruiters will ever reach their full potential. The other ninety-nine are stuck in the same loop — relying on the most placeable candidate call, avoiding real business development, and confusing activity with progress. In this episode, Scott breaks
The Top Biller Who Surfs 200 Days a Year
Tony O'Neill surfs 200 days a year, runs an executive search firm from the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, and lives a life most agency owners assume they have to retire before earning. Here's the part no one talks about: it didn't come from selling the business or stepping back from the desk. He's still billing, still in Pinnacle Society conversations, and still committed to another fifteen yea
From Laid-Off Recruiter to Staffing Firm CEO | Catiana Ibarra
Resumes never tell the full story. The candidate who casually mentioned she's open to relocating, the manager who said he wants a four-day week, the senior dev who's quietly looking — that detail gets buried in notes and forgotten.
Atlas changes that. It's the AI-first recruitment platform built to eliminate admin, capturing every conversation automatically and turning it into something yo
$720K in Q1, Zero Cold Calls — Nick Poloni's AI-Powered Recruiting Desk
$720,000 in one quarter. Zero cold calls. Three tools. He's running 29 active job orders in pharma and biotech recruiting, his business development is 100% inbound from LinkedIn, and he just took over the family agency on January 1st. This is what an AI-powered recruiting desk actually looks like when someone executes it correctly.
This episode is sponsored by Atlas — the AI-first recruitm
Million-Dollar Biller: The AI That Builds Elite Recruiters
Two million-dollar billers. A $4 million book. They walked away from all of it — at the peak of their performance — because they believed most recruiters were about to learn the hard way that AI doesn't save careers. It exposes the ones built on shaky ground.
🎁 Try Millee free for 30 days: https://www.millee.ai/
Seb Sharpe is the co-founder of Millee, an AI recruitment intelligence platform
From $2.2M to $11M: The 18-Month AI Deadline Hitting Every Agency
Amanda Hendrix helped scale a healthcare staffing firm from $2.2M to $11M in a single year during the COVID boom. Then the market normalized. Bill rates dropped from $145 to $110 in thirty days. Vendors got cut. Recruiter morale cracked. Agencies that hired aggressively into the surge got squeezed out one by one.
This episode is the post-mortem you don't usually get from someone who lived bo
How a Former NFL Player Built a $700K Recruiting Desk
🚀 THIS IS YOUR YEAR — Recruiter Gworth Summit kicks off TODAY
2026 is your year. The year you stop watching other recruiters hit the numbers you've been chasing and become the one hitting them. We're pulling together the industry's best — Mike Williams, Brianna Rooney, Mark Whitby, and a stacked lineup across the full week — to give you the playbook, the mindset, and the strategies to go eli
Direct Hire Builds a Job. Recurring Revenue Built a $28M Exit.
Diane Prince walked into staffing with zero recruiting experience and one specific intention: build a business she could scale and sell. Six years later, she sold her staffing agency for $28 million.
🚀 Diane is speaking again at the This Is Your Year Recruiter Summit 2026 — which is exactly why this episode is back in rotation. Don't miss her live session. Register free: https://this-is-your
Turn Your Recruiting Niche Into a $6M Practice + Venture Fund | Norm Volsky
Norm Volsky doesn't just place people at companies. He invests in them.
After 14 years in digital health and employee benefits recruiting, Norm has built something almost nobody else in this industry has pulled off: a $6M recruiting practice and a fully operational venture capital firm — running side by side, feeding each other, in the same niche.
His first client, Livongo, sold to Teladoc
How to Go Fully Retained Without Losing Your Clients
The This Is Your Year Recruiter Summit kicks off April 27th — less than 2 weeks away. Free live sessions with the industry's best, including Mike Williams, Brianna Rooney, and Mark Whitby. Register now: https://this-is-your-year-recruiter-summit.heysummit.com/
Most contingent recruiters think the hardest part of going retained is convincing their clients to pay upfront. Andrea Colabella thou
The Diagnosis Method Behind $12B in Staffing Revenue
Dave Veres started at Aerotech in September 1994. He was 22, fresh off four years as an all-conference shortstop at Michigan State, and he didn't know how to spell the company name. He got on a plane to Baltimore for training and called his parents after three days. They asked what the job was. He told them he didn't know — but it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen.
What followed was 27 an
When Getting the Hire Wrong Costs Lives
Most recruiting firms measure success by offers accepted. Jake Frazer watched that metric send unqualified people into a war zone. That was the moment he decided the industry was broken — and spent the next decade building something different.
Frazer is not a recruiter. He is a government contracting operator who watched from the inside as one of the largest defense contractors in the world
Why the Best Women Recruiters Keep Leaving Your Firm
Most recruiting firms aren't losing their best women because of the market. They're losing them because of how they're built.
Augusta Mirchandani has watched it happen her entire career — high-performing women who outbill their peers, build the best client relationships, and then quietly disappear after a maternity leave, a life change, or one too many passive-aggressive performance conversa
From Hospitality to €500K: One of Europe's Top Recruiting Billers
He spent years managing luxury restaurants in Los Angeles and London. Then he walked into a recruiting office with zero industry knowledge — and became one of Europe's top billing recruiters. Jean-Louis-Philippe Girardet (JLP) didn't just cross industries. He rewired how recruiting gets done.
🎯 This Is Your Year — Recruiter Summit | April 27th | FREE Mike Williams, Brianna Rooney, Mark Whitb
She Closed a Deal in Labor — While Her Recruiting Business Kept Her Alive
Stephanie Lowenstern's LinkedIn looks like the highlight reel. South Florida recruiter. Founder. Boy mom. Building a go-to-market search firm for the best tech startups in the country. The kind of story that gets you double-tapped and scrolled past in two seconds.
What the highlight reel doesn't show: her partner left when their son was five days old. She took a candidate call while she was
Your Next Hire Shouldn't Be a Recruiter
What if the best investment you could make in your recruiting firm had nothing to do with hiring another recruiter? Reyhan Khan has seen inside hundreds of agencies — and the ones scaling fastest all made the same unexpected move first.
If you want to check out Clay: https://clay.com/?via=411229
Why This Episode Matters
The recruiting industry is still early on the GTM adoption curve. The
The Unfair Advantage AI Is Giving Agency Recruiters | Jordan Shlosberg
The AI race in recruiting has already started — and most recruiters don't even know they're losing.
Jordan Shlosberg isn't a recruiter. He's the founder building the technology that's about to separate the top 1% of agency recruiters from everyone else. And in this episode, he pulls back the curtain on exactly what's coming, what it means for your desk, and why the window to get ahead is clo
Why I Never Hire Recruiters (And Built a $5M Firm) | Josh Volinsky
Josh Volinsky never hired a single recruiter. No experience, no desk history, no cold call background — just accountants. And somehow he built a $5M firm where 7+ people billed over $400K in their first year.
That's not a fluke. That's a system.
Josh is the co-founder of Synergy Search and the former all-time single-month billing record holder at Robert Half — $259K in one month. He walke
The Recruiters AI Will Replace (And the Ones It Won't) with Jeff Hyman
Jeff Hyman has been in recruiting for 30 years. He's founded 5 companies, written the book on hiring A-players, and watched every major tech wave reshape this industry.
He says what's happening right now is different. And most recruiters are not ready.
In this episode, Jeff breaks down exactly why the transactional recruiter is becoming extinct — and what the ones who survive are doing inst
How a Recruiter Became a $1M Biller by Niching Down
Most recruiters are chasing the wrong market, and it's quietly destroying their desk.
Will Wegert watched his billings collapse after chasing coastal fees and shiny opportunities he had no business pursuing. So he did something most recruiters won't: he looked at the data, killed the distractions, and went all-in on owning one niche in one city. What happened next took 7 years to build and l
Recruiters: Waiting on Clients Is Killing Your Desk
If you’re waiting to hear back… you’ve already lost.
In Part 2 of this deep dive, Jamie Lupo breaks down why most recruiters don’t have a sales problem — they have a control problem.
And that problem is killing desks quietly.
After 18 years inside LHH — one of the largest talent solutions organizations in the world — Jamie has trained thousands of recruiters, rebuilt struggling offices, an
Why Recruiters Lose Clients (It’s Not the Market)
Most recruiters think they have a sales problem.
Jamie Lupo says they actually have an interview problem — and it’s costing them clients.
After 18 years inside LHH, one of the largest talent solutions organizations in the world, Jamie trained teams across the country, rebuilt struggling offices, and watched thousands of recruiters win… or quietly fail.
Her diagnosis is blunt:
If you’r
$959K in 18 Months: Zero BD Calls, Just LinkedIn
What if you never made a single business development cold call and still billed almost a million dollars in your first 18 months solo? That's not a hypothetical. That's exactly what happened when one recruiter bet everything on owning his niche and letting LinkedIn do the selling for him.
Most recruiters are taught to smile, dial, and grind through cold BD calls to build a book of business.
Scaling a Recruiting Firm in Year One
Scaling a recruiting firm in year one isn’t theory; Camp Jennings breaks down what it actually takes to build momentum fast.
1. Episode Hook
Scaling a recruiting firm in year one sounds sexy.
Camp Jennings reveals what it really takes behind the scenes.
2. Why This Episode Matters
In this episode of The Elite Recruiter Podcast, Benjamin Mena sits down with Camp Jennings to unpack the rea
Millionaire Recruiter Sourcing Map: Close More Deals Faster
If you’re overthinking profiles, rewriting messages 5 times, and wondering why candidates aren’t replying…
You don’t need better tools.
You need a faster system.
🎯 This Is Your Year – Recruiter Summit 2026
Featuring Brianna Rooney and other elite recruiters who are redefining business development, sourcing, closing, and scaling.
Register here -> https://this-is-your-year-recruiter-
Create Demand Out of Thin Air: A BD System That Actually Works
🎙️ PART 2
Create Demand Out of Thin Air: A BD System That Actually Works
1️⃣ Episode Hook
No clients?
No excuses.
If you can’t create demand on command, you don’t own your desk — it owns you.
🔥 JOIN THE 30-DAY BD CHALLENGE (KICKS OFF FEB 9TH)
2026 is the year of action. We are launching a 30-day challenge to help you crush your business development goals, build accountability, and impl
Burn the Ships: When Recruiters Should Go Lone Wolf (And When They Shouldn’t)
🎙️ PART 1
Burn the Ships: When Recruiters Should Go Lone Wolf (And When They Shouldn’t)
1️⃣ Episode Hook
Thinking about going solo?
Before you burn the ships… you better know what you’re actually walking into.
🔥 JOIN THE 30-DAY BD CHALLENGE (KICKS OFF FEB 9TH)
2026 is the year of action. We are launching a 30-day challenge to help you crush your business development goals, build account
How Top Recruiters Keep Billing When Hiring Freezes
Hiring froze. Budgets stalled. Confidence disappeared.
Yet some recruiters stayed busy—and kept billing while others panicked.
🔥 JOIN THE 30-DAY BD CHALLENGE (KICKS OFF FEB 9TH) 2026 is the year of action. We are launching a 30-day challenge to help you crush your business development goals, build accountability, and implement the strategies from this podcast. Join The Elite Recruiter Commu
The 4 Tiers of Differentiation: Why Transactional Recruiters Won't Survive
🔥 JOIN THE 30-DAY BD CHALLENGE (KICKS OFF FEB 9TH) 2026 is the year of action. We are launching a 30-day challenge to help you crush your business development goals, build accountability, and implement the strategies from this podcast.
Join The Elite Recruiter Community to participate: https://elite-recruiters.circle.so/checkout/elite-recruiter-community
In 2026, the transactional recruit
How Recruiting Firms Break $10M: The 4-Part Growth Framework That Scales
Most recruiting firms never break $10M — not because of the market, but because the leader becomes the bottleneck.
If you want to scale past $10M (or $25M) without chaos, burnout, or relying on one rainmaker, this episode is a must-listen.
30 Day BD Challenge Kicks off Feb 9th in the Elite Recruiter Community
https://elite-recruiters.circle.so/checkout/elite-recruiter-community
2. Why
Tricia Tamkin & Jason Thibeault on Why Perfect Candidates Cost Recruiters Money
Most recruiters aren’t underperforming — they’re over-filtering.
Chasing “perfect” candidates is quietly costing you deals, speed, and money.
🎧 Tricia Tamkin & Jason Thibeault on Why Perfect Candidates Cost Recruiters Money
1. Episode Hook
Chasing “perfect” candidates feels responsible.
It’s also the fastest way to kill deals, slow your desk, and lose fees.
2. Why This Episode Matt
How Top Recruiters Turn Relationships Into Inbound Clients
Most recruiters are stuck chasing clients, sending cold outreach, and grinding through business development just to stay afloat.
In this episode of The Elite Recruiter Podcast, Benjamin Mena sits down with Pinnacle Society top biller Michael Silverstein to unpack why elite recruiters stop chasing deals and how they build inbound client demand through relationships, trust, and positioning.
T
5 Overlooked Ways Recruiters Get More Clients Fast
1. Episode Hook
Recruiters don’t have a talent problem right now.
They have a client acquisition problem—and most are fixing it the wrong way.
2. Why This Episode Matters
The last 18–24 months forced recruiters back into real business development.
In this episode, Sharon Bondurant breaks down the simple, overlooked strategies that consistently win clients—even in tough markets—without
How She Built a $1M Recruiting Firm in 23 Months (Sales + CEO Mindset)
1. Episode Hook
She was laid off five weeks postpartum…
23 months later, she crossed $1M in revenue building a recruiting firm her way.
2. Why This Episode Matters
Most recruiters are grinding harder every year and getting less predictable results.
This episode breaks that pattern—showing how to build revenue, clients, and freedom without burning out or chasing every shiny tactic.
If yo
From Zero to a $500K Year in 3 Years: A New Recruiter’s Playbook
1. Episode Hook
He walked into recruiting knowing nothing.
Three years later, he’s staring down a $500K year — without fancy tech, shortcuts, or a safety net.
2. Why This Episode Matters
Most recruiters fail in the first 36 months.
This episode shows exactly why Isaac didn’t — and how you can shortcut years of trial and error.
Whether you’re brand new, rebuilding momentum, or scaling to
How Candidate-First Recruiting Built a $1.5M Firm
1. Episode Hook
Most recruiters chase clients.
Sarah Englade built a $1.5M firm by obsessing over candidates instead.
Register now: 🎯 2026 Sales and BD Recruiter Summit
https://bd-sales-recruiter-2026.heysummit.com/
2. Why This Episode Matters
If business development feels harder than ever, this episode flips the script.
You’ll hear how a candidate-first strategy can unlock warmer cl
How Elite Recruiters Win Clients in 2026 (AI + BD)
1. Episode Hook
The old recruiting playbook is breaking.
If your business development looks the same as it did 2–3 years ago, you’re already falling behind.
🎯 2026 Sales and BD Recruiter Summit
https://bd-sales-recruiter-2026.heysummit.com/
2. Why This Episode Matters
AI is reshaping recruiting faster than most agencies are prepared for. In this episode, you’ll learn how elite recruiter
Why Top Recruiters Win Clients Without Selling
Why Top Recruiters Win Clients Without Selling
1. Episode Hook
The best recruiters don’t sell harder.
They win clients by becoming the most trusted person in the market.
2. Why This Episode Matters
Most recruiters struggle with business development because they approach it like sales.
This episode shows how top billers win clients, close more searches, and scale their desk by turning ev
LinkedIn Recruiting Secrets That Actually Drive Placements
LinkedIn Recruiting Secrets That Actually Drive Placements
🎙️ Episode Hook
Most recruiters think LinkedIn “doesn’t really work.”
She quietly proved them all wrong — and built a real hiring engine in the process.
🏆 Elite Recruiter Awards – Voting is Open
Recognize the recruiters and leaders making a real impact.
Vote now → https://benjaminmena.typeform.com/to/tK5kwRMe
🚀 Why This Episod
How Recruiters Win Inbound Clients with AI Marketing
🎙️ Episode Title: How Recruiters Win Inbound Clients with AI Marketing
1. Episode Hook
Your LinkedIn posts stopped working.
Cold email is getting crushed by spam filters.
So how are top recruiters actually generating inbound clients right now?
🏆 Elite Recruiter Awards – Voting is Open
Recognize the recruiters and leaders making a real impact.
Vote now → https://benjaminmena.typeform.co
How an Industry Insider Built a Recruiting Agency From Scratch (No Fancy Tools)
How an Industry Insider Built a Recruiting Agency From Scratch (No Fancy Tools)
🏆 Elite Recruiter Awards – Voting is Open
Recognize the recruiters and leaders making a real impact.
Vote now → https://benjaminmena.typeform.com/to/tK5kwRMe
Episode Hook
He wasn’t a lifelong recruiter.
He didn’t have a tech stack, automation, or AI hacks.
Yet he built a profitable recruiting agency anyway
How a One-Man Recruiter Closed 22 Executive Searches by Doing What Others Won’t
🔥 SHOW NOTES — The Elite Recruiter Podcast
Episode Title: How a One-Man Recruiter Closed 22 Executive Searches by Doing What Others Won’t
1. EPISODE HOOK
Most recruiters overcomplicate this business. Craig Picken built a multi-seven-figure executive search practice by doing the opposite—and he did it as a one-man army. This episode reveals how.
2. WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS
If you're ti
The Outbound & Discovery Playbook: How Elite Recruiters Close More Deals (with Conor Kline)
EPISODE SHOW NOTES — The Outbound & Discovery Playbook: How Elite Recruiters Close More Deals (with Conor Kline)
(The Elite Recruiter Podcast with Benjamin Mena)
1. EPISODE HOOK
Most recruiters think their problem is lead generation.
Conor Kline reveals the truth: your real bottleneck is your sales process — and it’s costing you clients, deals, and revenue.
🔹 SPONSORS
🚀 Atlas – AI-
Advanced Closing Mastery: Steve Finkel’s Framework to Triple Your Placements
Advanced Closing Mastery: Steve Finkel’s Framework to Triple Your Placements From His Latest Book: Closing For Recruiters
Recruiters: Part 2 is where the real closing mastery begins. If Part 1 showed why closing matters, this episode gives you the exact frameworks, closes, and psychological triggers used by the top 1% of recruiters to turn hesitation into yes—and offers into revenue.
The Art of Closing: Steve Finkel Reveals Why Most Recruiters Lose Offers
The Art of Closing: Steve Finkel Reveals Why Most Recruiters Lose Offers
Recruiters: You’re not paid for sourcing—you’re paid for closing. And the hidden skill separating top billers from everyone else is the one most recruiters never train: what happens after the first interview.
Why This Episode Matters
If you’ve ever lost an offer after weeks of work, watched a great candidate vanish, o
The Pro Athlete Mindset That Creates World-Class Recruiters
The Pro Athlete Mindset That Creates World-Class Recruiters
What happens when a former professional athlete brings elite discipline, visualization, and competitive fire into recruiting? You get a recruiter who treats the desk like a sport—and builds a fast-growing search firm in record time.
In this episode of The Elite Recruiter Podcast, former pro athlete Jared Watts, founder of Next Play
From 6 Months With No Placements to Million-Dollar Biller: The Feminine Energy, RPO Strategy & Mindset Shift Behind It with Emily Audibert
In this powerful episode, million-dollar biller Emily Audibert breaks down how she went from six months without a single placement to becoming one of the most sought-after recruiters in the go-to-market tech space. Her turning point wasn’t a new tool or technique—it was understanding the balance between masculine and feminine energy in selling, sourcing, influence, and relationship-building.
The Hidden Operating System Behind Every High-Performing Recruiting Firm with Kelsey Boyd
Is your recruiting desk—or your entire firm—running on chaos instead of systems? You’re not alone. Most recruiters feel the turbulence daily… but the top-performing firms operate differently. They run on an Operating System that eliminates chaos, drives consistent billings, and creates scalable growth.
In this episode, Ben sits down with Kelsey Boyd, a transformational operator who helped ov
Scaling Your Recruiting & Staffing Firm: How Jon Davis Grew to $300M and Sold, Plus Lessons on Contracts, Relationships, and the Blueprint to Exit
What does it really take to grow a recruiting business to $300M, scale contract staffing revenue, and execute a profitable exit—while keeping your team together? In this high-impact episode of The Elite Recruiter Podcast, host Benjamin Mena sits down with industry veteran Jon Davis, who reveals the exact strategies that turned his firm into one of the most successful staffing organizations in
How to Build a 7-Figure Recruiting Firm That Runs Without You — Inside the EOS System with Derek Pittak (Part 2: The Step-by-Step EOS Playbook)
If you loved Part 1, get ready for the blueprint.
In Part 2, Derek Pittak returns to break down how recruiters can actually use EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) to scale—with simple, powerful tools that drive accountability, clarity, and focus.
We cover everything from documenting processes (without 75-page SOPs) to running 90-day “traction” cycles, creating scorecards, setting rocks
How to Build a 7-Figure Recruiting Firm That Runs Without You — Inside the EOS System with Derek Pittak (Part 1: From Chaos to Clarity)
Recruiting is chaos—and few people know how to tame it better than Derek Pittak, CEO of Lingo Staffing and certified EOS Implementer.
Before joining the world of staffing, Derek worked inside the Department of Defense and a regional bank. Then one life-changing conversation pulled him into recruiting, where he went on to lead a $125 million portfolio of staffing brands and introduce EOS (En
From $900K Recruiter to AI Founder: How Jessica Oliver Built Her Own Product Without Knowing Code
What happens when a $900K-a-year recruiter decides to stop building for others—and builds her own AI product instead?
Jessica Oliver didn’t have a tech background. No coding degree. No startup team. But that didn’t stop her from vibe coding her own SaaS platform for government contracting—all while running her recruiting business and raising three kids.
This episode is a masterclass for rec
From Chaos to Clarity: How EOS Helps Recruiting Firms Triple Revenue and Take Back Control with Jackie Kibler
Recruiting can feel like total chaos—constant fires, endless admin, and a million moving parts. But what if there were a simple system that top firms use to triple revenue, double profitability, and finally calm the madness?
That’s what you’ll learn in this episode of The Elite Recruiter Podcast with host Benjamin Mena and EOS Implementer & former Executive Recruiter Jackie Kibler.
Jack
The Wall Street Talent Agent Redefining Recruiting: John Pierson on Risk, Grit & the Future of the Industry
What happens when a Marine-turned-headhunter takes on Wall Street? In this episode of The Elite Recruiter Podcast, host Benjamin Mena sits down with John Pierson, CEO of P2 Investments, to explore how he built a boutique firm serving hedge funds and elite investors—then reinvented the recruiting game with a candidate-first, talent agent model.
From cold-calling billionaires at dawn to foundi
How I Built a $4M Recruitment Agency and Walked Away: Lessons, Offshoring, Burnout, and AI Insights with Gregory Fischer
Ever wondered what it really takes to scale a recruitment agency from the ground up—and have the guts to walk away at the top? In this episode, Benjamin Mena sits down with Gregory Fischer, who built AMI Network to over $4M in gross margin and $1.4M EBITDA—then left it all to build a new agency his way, powered by offshoring, smarter processes, and AI.
🎯 2026 Sales and BD Recruiter Summit: h
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