Your career in recruitment: learn, invest, capitalise.

Anyone who starts with us often wonders, after a few weeks, where it’s all heading. Fair enough, because those first months are tough, and your salary today isn’t the reason to stay. The reason is what comes after.

In ten years, more than 150 people have learned the trade with us. Some now run their own office, others bill as independents, and others stayed principal and now take starters under their wing in turn. Each of their careers followed the same three steps.

Learn: your first year

Your first year is about one thing: learning the trade. You don’t need experience. You get two months of training in three parts: candidates, clients and the process from interview to start. Every morning you plan your day with your manager, and after your first four deals you become a consultant, with your own market. What those first months look like is in Your first months as a recruiter.

You earn a fixed salary plus uncapped commission on every placement. A good starter grows to around €180,000 billing a year, about ten placements. What that means for your pay is in What does a recruiter earn in Belgium?

It’s also the hardest year. You hear more noes than yeses, you work weeks for a reward that comes later and you compare yourself with colleagues who’ve been calling for years. That’s normal: you’re laying the groundwork for the rest.

Invest: years two and three

In years two and three, something changes. You know your market: you know which companies are growing and which vacancies you’re better off leaving alone. Clients call you back with a new vacancy, and candidates you placed send their colleagues your way. You learn to defend your fee, and you notice you bring in more with the same calls.

That’s investing: calling, placing and repeating, until you can do the job with your eyes closed. You grow from consultant to senior, who bills between €180,000 and €300,000, and on to principal consultant, with €240,000 to €360,000 (read What counts as good billing for a recruiter?). Your commission grows with you, so you feel it in your pay too.

Caro is a fine example. She’s been with us for four and a half years, recruits in insurance and knows her market inside out. Today she’s a principal consultant in Antwerp, and she’s happy to bring younger colleagues along.

Why two to three years? Because everything that comes after rests on those years. As a partner, you build an office in a market you know, and as an independent, your billing is your income from the first month. Jump too early and you jump without a network. Maarten, a partner in Amsterdam, can quickly tell who’s going to make it: “By their resilience when things go wrong. Talent helps, but mindset and discipline make the difference.”

Let’s not be naive about it

Investing two to three years in something that only comes later: that’s a big ask. This is what I hear most often.

Capitalise: partner or independent

After three to five years, you’ve made your mark with your billing. Then you reap the rewards, and you have two routes to do that. Or you consciously choose neither: that’s fine too.

Partner at Greystone Partners

As a partner, you build something of your own. You set up your own office, vertical or business line, as a co-⁠owner: in a market we don’t serve yet, with a service alongside recruitment and selection, or in a region where we’re not yet present. That’s how Amsterdam came on board, and now Brussels. You hold 30% of the shares in your office and you invoice a fixed fee, which grows with your office from €8,500 to €10,000 a month. The database, your team’s training, the tools and the back office come from the group.

Romina is one of those partners. She started with us as a trainee, rose to principal in four years and now runs our office in Antwerp, with a team of eight. “Sky is the limit,” as she puts it. Maarten helped build up our office in Amsterdam, with construction as a strong niche. An entrepreneur through and through.

We work out what it earns you in the Greystone Partners calculator. A worked example, not a promise: you build up your office over three years.

In your first year, your stake isn’t worth anything yet: without your own billing, your office runs at a loss. That’s why in year 2 you let go of billing and go all in on your team, because a buyer only pays for an office that runs without you. From year 4 you pay 18% on your dividend instead of 30%, and you keep around €13,100 a month. We value your stake at five times your team’s profit, on a sale to an outside party.

After that, your biggest lever is your team. If your eight consultants bill an average of €240k instead of €210k, you keep around €16,300 a month and your stake is worth €1,062,000. So as a partner, you invest above all in your people.

Independent at Shortlist

Have you been billing strongly for years, from around €240,000 a year, and do you want to be your own boss without building a team? Then you go independent, with your own BV and your own brand, at Shortlist. You keep 50% of your first €100,000, 60% of the next €100,000 and 75% of everything above that, with no fixed cost. We take care of the database, the tools, the invoicing and a seat on the floor.

Take Lotte from our worked example, a senior recruiter with €240,000 billing. As an employee, she keeps around €3,140 a month. At Shortlist, €140,000 goes to her own BV, and with the same package she keeps around €6,550 net a month. How we get there is explained in How much does an independent recruiter earn? Work out your own figure in the calculator.

Jeremi chose that route. He works as an independent recruiter through Shortlist, picks his own clients and his own hours, and leaves the admin to us.

Or you stay principal

You don’t have to capitalise. If you’d rather stay in the safe cocoon of being an employee, you stay principal at Greystone Recruitment: a fixed salary, uncapped commission, a car and a team around you. You know your market, you bring starters along and you don’t have to carry an office or a BV. That’s a good choice too.

Which route suits you?

What I look for in a partner

I usually spot a partner after three to five years. Not after one good quarter, but once you’ve shown who you are. I’m looking for an ambitious top performer, and I recognise one by five things:

• Hunger. You want more than a good year. You want to build something that’s still standing in ten years’ time, with your name on it.
• The drive to keep learning. Even as a principal, you still ask for feedback and learn from whoever does it better. Anyone who thinks they’ve got it all figured out stops growing.
• An obsession with the craft. You’re still thinking about that one candidate in the evening, and you know your market better than your clients do. We see it in every top performer: just read Recruitment training: how a top biller works.
• You’re driven by money, and it’s fine to say so. Recruitment is sales. If you want to earn according to what you do, you keep calling even after ten noes. As a partner, you earn according to what your office does, and you have to want that.
• Your billing already speaks for you. Proven, not promised. A team follows someone who has shown how it’s done.

Do you recognise yourself and have a plan for a market or a team? Then I’d love to hear it: book a chat with Vince or me.

And in the long run?

Capitalising isn’t just about what you keep each month. If you invest what you don’t need, your money works for you, and in time working becomes a choice. Work out how much wealth you build that way, as a partner or as an independent, and when you’re financially free, in the wealth-⁠building calculator. You can read how FIRE works and what your number is in FIRE for recruiters.

Still at the start? Take a look at the opportunities or have a chat with us.

Frequently asked questions

What does a career in recruitment look like?

With us, it unfolds in three steps. In your first year you learn the trade, in years two and three you invest until you can do it with your eyes closed, and after that you capitalise as a partner with your own office or as an independent at Shortlist. You can also stay principal.

How long does it take to become a partner?

I usually spot a partner after three to five years: once your billing is proven and you have a plan for a market or a team.

How much do you earn as a partner in recruitment?

In our worked example, with an office of eight consultants, you keep around €11,500 net a month in year 3 and €13,100 from year 4, and your stake is worth around €747,000. A worked example, not a promise: work it out yourself in the calculator.

Can you go independent as a recruiter?

Yes. If you bill around €240,000 a year or more, you can carry on with your own BV at Shortlist, where you keep 50 to 75% of what you bill.

Do you have to become a partner or independent?

No. If you’d rather keep the security of being an employee, you stay principal: a fixed salary, uncapped commission and a team around you.

You’ll find all the steps at a glance in our guide Becoming a recruiter in Belgium.

Sources

• The growth path and all the assumptions (the cost of a consultant, your fee, your dividend and the value of your stake): the Greystone Partners calculator.
• Lotte’s example, step by step: How much does an independent recruiter earn?
• VVPR-⁠bis rising to 18%, from the programme law published in the Belgian Official Gazette of 1 June 2026: KPMG.
• The intermediate 20% rate abolished for contributions from 2026: Programme law of 18 July 2025, article 33 (in Dutch).

A worked example, not financial, tax or legal advice. Amounts rounded.