Recruitment training: how a top biller works.

Almost every week, someone asks me what a top biller does differently, or which recruitment training will get them there. They expect a script, a trick or a tool. The honest answer is less spectacular: a top biller is attitude first, and only then skill.

Let’s not be naive about it: without skills, you won’t make it. A good attitude without a method is energy that goes nowhere. But skills can be learned, and they’re all set out below, with training for each step. The attitude you have to bring yourself.

Attitude first

After ten years and dozens of consultants, Vince and I keep seeing the same five things in the people who make it.

They put their career first. The first years demand a lot. If you’re not willing to give that, you won’t reach that level. You can see it in small things: who’s on the phone early, who wants to know their market better than their clients do, and who takes a moment after a call to think about what could have gone better.

They’re resilient and they push on. A no hurts, but it doesn’t decide your next call. In recruitment, you hear no more often than yes: candidates who drop out, clients who pick someone else, a counteroffer at the last minute. A top biller feels it, and picks up the phone for the next call anyway.

They’re consistent. Not one strong week, but fifty decent ones. Billing adds up: whoever puts in their calling hours, presents their candidates and follows up on their processes every week ends the year far ahead of anyone who works in bursts. How to measure that consistency is in Three months without a placement: how to find the leak.

They can wait for their reward. Delayed gratification: what you build now only pays off months later. A candidate you speak to today, you might only place next year. A client you’re just getting to know will only call you back when they have a vacancy. If you accept that, you build a network that yields more every year.

They’re obsessed with the job, and keep a cool head. Working hard without thinking is as useless as the reverse. Top performers want to know everything about their market and their trade, but they also know their numbers, choose their vacancies and know when to let a process go.

If you recognise yourself in this, the rest can be learned. If you don’t, no training will make you a top biller.

Then the skills: your input first

You learn the skills on top of that, and the order matters. First your input: your market, your time and your day. Then the quality of what you do with clients and candidates. Only then the process from interview to signature. Fine-⁠tuning your closing while too little is coming in is polishing an engine with no fuel.

Choose your market. A top biller works in a niche they know better than their clients do: a few roles, in one region or sector. First check that your market is big enough: enough candidates you can reach, and enough companies hiring them. If it’s too small, add a role that fits the same companies and the same boss, like site managers alongside project managers.

Know what kind of market it is. In a candidate-⁠driven market, good candidates are scarce and companies have plenty of vacancies: it’s all about finding people. In a client-⁠driven market, there are plenty of candidates and it’s all about the right vacancies. That decides how you split your time. If you have good candidates but too few interviews per candidate, you call clients. If you have vacancies without candidates, you go hunting.

Plan your day. Start with the candidates who’ve just told you they’re open to a move: they’re warm today, maybe not tomorrow. Then your processes, then your clients and your sourcing, in fixed blocks. Make your calls in your core hours, between 10 am and noon and between 4 and 6 pm, and do your admin outside them. Turn off your notifications and read your email at set times.

Clients: choose your vacancies and defend your fee

Choose your vacancies. A top performer doesn’t take on everything. At the intake meeting, they ask about the urgency, the budget, the process and who decides. If the salary is too low or the requirements are unrealistic, they reset expectations, or they say no. How to do that is in The impossible vacancy: how to steer the client, and how to say no.

Work exclusively where you can. With an exclusive assignment or a retained search, you’re not competing with five other agencies, and a vacancy turns into a placement far more often. How to sell that, even to a client already working with three agencies, is in Selling retained search to your clients.

Defend your fee. If you give in to every request for a discount, you have to place more for the same billing. What to put on the table instead is in How to defend your fee without discounting.

Meet your clients. You take the big steps face to face: a first introduction, a difficult vacancy, an exclusive assignment. Why, and how to get the meeting, is in Face-⁠to-⁠face, phone or Teams: why face-⁠to-⁠face wins.

Candidates: qualify sharply and present smartly

Qualify in your first conversation. After one conversation, a top performer knows whether they can place a candidate, and puts their time into the ones they can place. Go through the package line by line: a salary that doesn’t add up is better spotted now than at offer stage. You’ll find out how in Your candidate is lying about their salary: how to spot it in time.

Present without burning your candidate. You present anonymously, and the name only goes to a client once your candidate has said yes to that company. Read The client wants your candidate’s name first. And check upfront whether a client already knows your candidate: “We already knew this candidate”: who’s entitled to the fee?

Present widely. A candidate with two or three first interviews at the same time signs more often than a candidate who’s only talking to one client. Present every good candidate to several clients in the same week, so the interviews coincide.

From interview to signature

Prepare every interview. Your candidate knows who they’re meeting, how the interview will go and what the client wants to hear. And they call you straight after the interview.

Debrief both sides. Call your candidate and your client after every interview, and dig into any doubts: about the job, the company, the location, the salary and what their partner thinks. A doubt you hear now, you can still resolve. A doubt you only hear at offer stage costs you the deal.

Close the counteroffer early. You close the counteroffer from your candidate’s current employer in your first conversation, not at offer stage. Read Close the counteroffer in your first conversation.

Close the offer before you make it. Know your candidate’s whole package and their minimum, put your client’s proposal next to it and book the signing straight away. Read Closing the offer: steering client and candidate.

Follow up until the first working day. Between signing and starting comes the notice period, and a lot can still happen. How long it lasts and how to shorten it is in Your candidate’s notice. If someone stops replying, read Ghosting and chasing: when a candidate or client goes quiet.

After the placement

Keep in touch with your candidate and your client. Call after the first week and after the first month. That way you hear about a problem before it gets big, and often about the next vacancy too.

Build repeat business. One client with five vacancies a year is worth more than five clients with one vacancy each. You know the people, the process and what they’re looking for.

Protect your fee. If a client still ends up hiring your candidate without going through you, The client hires your candidate behind your back shows what you can prove and invoice.

Your numbers

Top performers know their numbers: their call time per day, their candidates per month and their interviews per deal. If you know them, you spot a leak weeks before it shows up in your revenue, and you know what to do this week to hit your annual target. How to measure them and where to look when things go quiet is in Three months without a placement: how to find the leak.

Checklist

• You put your career first, even in the weeks when things go against you.
• A no doesn’t decide your next call.
• You’re consistent: every week, your hours, your candidates and your processes.
• You know that what you build now only pays off months later.
• You know your market better than your clients do, and it’s big enough.
• Your day is in blocks, with your call time in your core hours.
• You choose your vacancies, work exclusively where you can and defend your fee.
• You qualify in your first conversation and present anonymously and widely.
• You prepare every interview and debrief both sides.
• You close the counteroffer early, and the offer before you make it.
• You follow up until after the first working day.
• You know your numbers.

Frequently asked questions

What is a top biller?

A recruiter who bills well above average, year after year. For us, top performers start at €400,000 a year, and anyone who hits €300,000 is among the strongest seniors. Which billing goes with which level is in What counts as good billing for a recruiter?

Is a top biller born or made?

A bit of both. You bring the attitude: putting your career first, pushing on, being consistent, being able to wait for your reward and being obsessed with the job. You learn the skills: your market, your day, your clients, your candidates and the process through to the signature.

What do you learn first?

Your input: your market, your call time and your daily plan. Only when that produces enough do you fine-⁠tune your work with clients and candidates, and your closing.

What makes good recruitment training?

Good training starts with your numbers, not with a script. It first looks at whether it’s your input or your skill, tackles one step at a time and has someone listen in on your calls. With us, every recruiter puts their numbers next to those of the whole floor, every week.