How to hit $1,000,000 in your second year of Recruitment

Hey guys, welcome back to yet another episode of Top Billers Toolkit, where me and my twin brother interview top billers from all around the globe to unlock the secrets to their success. Today's guest is Kent Dupuis. Kent is a 3-time million-dollar biller, and he billed over a million in his second year of recruitment. And he started out in one of the toughest recruitment markets the world has ever seen. In today's episode, we're going to be breaking down why starting off in a tough market was actually one of Kent's biggest advantages. We're going to be diving deep into Kent's outbound approach and how he uses NPCs to win clients. And he's won over 40 clients through speccing. We're also going to be talking about Kent's decision to hunt demand in the market instead of sticking to one niche, and how this allowed him to make way more money and take on way more clients. Guys, this episode is packed with practical takeaways. Kent is an awesome dude. We hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did. And as usual, grab a cuppa or a glass of wine depending on when you're listening to this Let's get into it, shall we? Wait a second, guys. Quick question for you. If you could land a new client on LinkedIn in the next couple of weeks, how much would that be worth to you? $20,000, $30,000, maybe $40,000? Well, we have a pretty crazy offer on right now. If you are a recruitment business owner, then we will work with you for free and write you 2 posts at absolutely no cost. And here's the cool part. Other recruiters that have come through this free trial have managed to win new clients They've racked up hundreds of thousands of impressions and started conversations with top-tier candidates. It's completely risk-free, so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you're interested, the link's in the description below. If not, no worries. We hope you enjoy the podcast.

See you later. Ken, thank you so much for joining us today, my friend. How you doing?

Doing great. Beautiful day here in Austin. Excited to be here. Appreciate you guys having me on.

Amazing. You are our first official guest for 2026. I am so excited to get the podcast up and running. And guys, this is going to be a good podcast because this— Ken is a very special— has a very special story. So I'm looking forward to diving into this. Ken, we're going to start off with the first question as always, which is what's the number one tool in your toolkit, whether it be a mindset, strategy, or software?

Yeah. So I'll give you guys some extra on here. I figured there— I was reading through it. I feel like they're all quite important. I guess to answer the question, I'd say the most important would be the mindset. I feel like that's kind of the foundation of where everything starts. Where you kind of take the mindset away, you have the best strategy and software in the world, but without the right mindset, it's kind of all for waste, frankly. So the mindset in specific, I mean, you guys know probably just as good as I do, the sport we are in of recruitment can be a massive roller coaster, definitely full of ups and downs. So I feel like just the Mindset of resilience is extremely important. Where I find the people who do really well in this industry compared to the people who kind of crash and burn, it really comes down to the mindset. And it's one of those things where bad things happen to everyone no matter how good you are. There's just, you know, we're dealing with people. People flake out, people lie, you know, whatever happens. So I think it's very important that whenever bad things do happen, a dropout, a missed interview, I find the people who have the most success kind of take that bad thing that happened and use it as fuel. Use it as one, okay, what can I learn from this to keep it from happening again? And to use it as fuel to actually work harder. And I guess the other side of, I guess, other side of the fence, the people who I feel like don't do quite well or crash out and burn in this industry is the bad thing happens and then they kind of get down on themselves. Oh my God, woe is me. And then because that bad thing happens, they feel sorry for themselves. They work less, less good things happen, and then it kind of just goes in this downward spiral to eventual crash and burn, or if you kind of stop it at that first bad thing, work harder. Okay, great. Now you go on an upward spiral. You know, you're working harder, more good things come to you, you get more referrals, you do more deals, you get more confident, and then you kind of go upwards on that aspect. So I think the mindset by far is just the foundation that frankly every single person who succeeds in this industry has. So that'd be my number one strategy. I'd say would be number two. I'll get into this later, but I guess I'm kind of, I don't know, going against the grain here where I find a lot of kind of the sentiment in the recruitment industry is, oh, you need to go, what is it? It's an inch wide, a mile deep into your vertical. Like that's the only way to succeed. Where I find that really handcuffs you at times where I'm not sure how popular this is, but I've even heard people just like getting so niche to where they only do like .NET Microsoft engineers, like that's all they do. Like you're telling me if a client came to you and they said they needed a Java engineer, you'd say no? Like, what are you talking about? But it's kind of one of those things of like, oh, you know, you're supposed to get, you know, really, really deep in the niches compared to, you know, like why are you going to be saying no to different business when I find recruitment is just kind of a foundational skill. Like if you can recruit a.NET engineer, I promise you, you can recruit a Java or Python or AI or ML engineer just the same. With a few different tweaks and learning around it. So I find the strategy is quite important just because if you were super niched in and you're just saying no to different business, then again, you're just going to bill less, frankly, just because you're making it a lot harder on yourself. And then lastly, of course, software is very important. New stuff coming out every day. I can't— I don't know how people did this job before LinkedIn Recruiter, frankly. I talked to some of the old folks and they're like, oh yeah, we used to like fax over resumes and call people through Yellow Pages. I'm like, oh my God, that sounds awful. So software, of course, very important. And I guess on that topic too, we can get into this later, but the whole AI space, I find a lot of people are freaking out like, oh my God, recruitment is going to go away. And I almost have a different sentiment on it where I feel like AI is going to— people who use AI are going to replace people who don't use AI, not AI is going to replace us completely, at least not for the near future. So I think using the software, especially the bleeding edge, always trying to kind of find ways to optimize is, is important. So all three are important, but that's at least my order of them.

That was probably the most thorough answer we've ever had. Great job. So many questions.

I gave all the sauce.

No, no. So many questions. So many great points. I really resonate with the pain piece. Me and Sam were actually talking about it before we jumped on the pod, talking about like the idea of pain, the perception of pain, and how once you, you know, I guess it's kind of like perceiving pain in a different way. And as you say, like, if something bad happens, it's like, do you go up or do you go down? And the, the most successful people typically go up and use it as fuel. Or, or at least, even if they don't use it as fuel, their perception of pain is different. They'll see pain in a different way. They'll see it as a, uh, you know, as a good thing maybe, or, or a natural, um, progression to like the end goal. So I just really resonate with that, and I think it's something that people should mull over and maybe even consider their relationship with pain. And how they react to different environments. Um, yeah, I just found that really interesting. Don't know if you had anything to add, Sam.

Yeah, the mind, the mind is a powerful thing, especially perspective-wise. Like, I feel, you know, one, the same thing could happen to two different people, but based on your perspective is completely just how you feel inside. Like, it's one of those things, like, going back to just kind of the simple aspect of it, it's like, oh, I don't have to go to work, I get to go to work every day. So that kind of gets you excited, it gets you like in a frankly higher vibration where you're just feeling good, more good things happen to you compared to, oh, I have to go to work, like, woah, this sucks. And you're kind of dragging through the day where there's, you know, frankly hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people that would kill to be in your shoes just to have a job that is frankly a good career, you know. So I feel like small things on perspective of pain of just really anything can just vastly, I feel like, change outcomes and just how you're feeling, your happiness level in general. 'Cause the wrong perspective, you can be, you know, the most blessed person on, on Earth but still be quite depressed or sad just depending on what your perspective is.

Yeah, absolutely love that. I'm reading a lot of Stoicism at the moment, Kent, and it goes into that a lot. Just like, so true. Like, the, the, the perspective you hold about your current situation can either be super negative or super positive depending on how you want to view it.

Um, yeah, so your mind's the only thing you can really control, right?

Can't control your heart, can't control anything outside. Mind's the only thing you can control. So It's good to make it your friend, right?

Yes, 100%.

Can we get into the milestone and the story, Ben? I really want people—

Yeah, well, I don't think recruiters are going to believe me when I say this, because when you told me, Ken, I was like, what? That's ridiculous. So you build a million in your second year of recruitment, um, which is—

Second full year.

Second full year. I mean, that's just like unheard of. I know there's going to be people listening to this saying bullshit, literally, as someone says, but I completely believe you, uh, and I know you did it, um, Ken, and I just, I think I'd love you to share how the hell did you do that? Like, that's unheard of.

How did you do it? My old CEO, I remember, was saying like, hey Ken, you've had a very unique, uh, journey in recruitment. Um, and he's been recruiting I think like 30 years or something, so it is quite unique. Um, it was unique times, I guess, to be fair. But kind of the story is, um, right after college— I graduated, uh, from Texas Tech in 2019. Uh, right after college, I only had 2 offers, um, and they're both recruitment firms. Um, no, sorry, I only had 1 offer. I I had 2 interviews, one declined me, another recruitment firm, they messed up honestly. And then I got another offer, my only offer outta college. I'm like, I guess I'm doing this, right? And that was, well, August 2019. So then I was, yeah, what, 6 months? I was kind of just learning and everything. It was great. And then that year was 2020. So March 2020, COVID and whatnot hit. So it was a very interesting, I guess, first full year of recruitment. Look, at the time, my God, it, it was tough sledding, I'll tell you what. But at the time, I guess where I am now looking back, it was really what I guess set the foundation of my career just because 2020, as you, I mean, you listeners out there, if you were in there and I guess recruiting in 2020, probably the hardest recruitment market we will have for the next 100 years. No one was hiring, no one was leaving. It was just brutal. And so to have any sort of success, you just had to just really master the fundamentals, work extremely hard, basically every single deal, every single New client was so, so difficult. So you just had to be amazing at all the fundamentals of cold calling, reference checking, getting creative, like all kinds of different things. And recruitment was just so difficult then that again, you just had to be good at the fundamentals. And essentially what happened, I was in that year kind of mastered the fundamentals, was working really, really hard to, I think I built $200K that year to give you an idea, working like 10, 12 hours a day, which was terrible. Then 2021, pendulum swung to the complete other side where that was probably one of the hottest markets we'll see for a while. Frankly, I'll say that 2025 and now might be equally as hot, but it was a big swing from the hardest market ever to 2021, 2022, a pretty fluid market. And essentially what happened is I kept doing the same fundamentals, kept working just as hard, but because the market was a lot hotter, my leverage was a lot higher. So instead of building $200K working 10, 12 hours a day, I had just over $1 million in full desk perm. I think it was like $1,050,000 or something. So I guess that was the explanation behind it. But it does take— I mean, you can call it luck, I guess, in a way, because if 2021 was just like 2020 as far as the difficulty of market, would I build $1 million? No way. But, you know, in a hard market, build $200K. And of course I got a bit better in my second full year and I just kind of used that same fundamental as the same work ethic and even a hot market, build a million, uh, for my first time in my second full year, which was quite exciting to say the least.

Really interesting. Um, so I, I, I was thinking about this before the call, speaking to Sam about it. It's like, it's almost a blessing in a weird way that you started in a tough market, because the opposite is true for a lot of recruiters. They'll start in an easy market and then they'll think they're like God's gift, and then they'll go into a tough market and then they won't bill anything. But the opposite happened to you. I just find that fascinating. Um, yeah, really interesting. And who— because I still think in order to build that level, even in a good market, you must have, you must have learned some really good fundamentals. Were you like working next to like a really good top biller, or like how did you learn those fundamentals so quickly? Because, you know, even $200K in a bad market for your first year is not bad at all, uh, Kent. That's still very respectable, do you know what I mean? So what— how did you learn so quickly? What was your— what happened?

Yeah. Great question. So I think this is important for, I guess, anyone coming— I guess any listeners that are either new in recruitment or looking to get into recruitment. I got lucky in this aspect where I wasn't really indexing on like— and frankly, it's the only job offer I had out of college. I was like, okay, I'm guessing going. But a big thing that helped me just frankly my entire career, I guess that year and then 2021, build $1 million, 2022, build $1.1 million, just actually hit $1 million last year as well. That's kind of just helped me throughout. Is having really good mentors. So I was quite lucky. The firm I joined was really small. Like I think there was 70 people total throughout the UK and the US. And then in the Austin office, we started off with like 10 people in the whole office, all reporting to one manager. And then in COVID, they all either quit or got fired, frankly, for just because they weren't working out very hard at all, frankly. So then for a solid, like, Starting in, I don't know, April 2020, it was literally just me. It was me, the CEO, and my manager. And the CEO is super, super— like, guy's a genius. Really, really strong recruitment. Been in the industry for 25 years. And then my manager, who I think the year in 2019, he started from scratch and built like $700,000, $800,000. Just a really, really solid full desk perm guy. And again, $700,000, $800,000 biller. And so it was honestly the ideal scenario for being right off, I guess, starting off in recruitment where it's just me, didn't know my, my ass from my elbow, frankly, in recruitment around these two extremely smart folks and successful folks in recruitment, just kind of being a sponge and them listening to my calls, me asking questions and just really trying to learn everything I possibly could. And that's, I think, another big thing that just kind of set up my fundamentals and set up my foundation of just kind of upskilling myself and how to be better, just being around that and really trying to be a sponge and learn everything I possibly could.

Were there a few moments, Ken, being around those, those mentors where, where the, where the needle shifted and you were like, oh shit, you know, that's how I do it? Or were there any moments that you remember that really like catapulted you forward?

Oh, countless. Honestly, there's a lot of stuff I still use today, frankly. Like even the way I start candidate calls was I remember I was like, I feel like I almost changed it a lot, like earlier in my career, like the way I would structure calls and the way I would start them would change all the time. And then one day I remember it's one of those weird, like just core memories. Like I was just sitting there and I was like, I'm going to listen to one of my managers, like, candidate calls, like how he does it. And then I heard it. I was like, that's genius. I'm going to do that now. And like, to this day, I still do it. And it's just kind of like, so there's like hard stuff like that, like how you structure the calls, how you start the calls, like even like the exact copy you say. And then there's just kind of like the parts that no one really tells you about recruitment. Like for example, and I try and teach this to a lot of my team, like you have to remember these clients are paying a lot of money for these candidates, like, you know, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000. And you have to remember like, you know, they could hire, I guess if they get a referral from one of their current employees or if they get someone that applies to their job posting, they get to hire that person for, quote unquote, free. Of course you have to pay their salary, but there's no massive fee attached to it. And so there's just things that clients never tell you that they're going to, I guess, judge your candidates a lot harder than they would other candidates. But they all do. Of course they do. And so sometimes people on my team would send me candidates that are like, okay, they're mediocre. Like, yeah, technically they check the boxes, but they're not that great. And I'm telling them, put yourself in the hiring manager's shoes. Would you pay $40,000 fee for someone that's just okay? Like, no way. They only pay for the best. They want— that's why they're using you to go out and find an absolutely perfect fit. And so those are other things that you don't really just pick up immediately. I mean, maybe you do, but just have just little tips like that. Like, hey, again, remember, like, put yourself in their shoes. Remember why they are using you to go find the best people and to pay a lot of money for that. Of course they're going to judge it quite hard. So It's just kind of little small things like that that just kind of, you know, make everything start clicking, frankly.

Yeah, love that, man.

I just have to go back to that moment.

Uh, I'm putting you on the spot here a bit, Ken, but that moment when you listen to your mentor's, uh, calls, candidate calls, and, and you said, that's genius. Was that— you probably don't remember, I don't know if you remember all of it, but was there any part of it that, that really, that you remember that was like, oh shit, I'm going to do that now? Was it the tone? Was it the language? Was it the this, the closing, like what was it?

Yeah, it was really the tone. And I guess that is all I'll tell you. So basically the way I start candidate calls now is, okay, hey, yeah, hey, can I try on LinkedIn? Saw you're interested. Great to hear. Looking at your LinkedIn, of your resume, I see you're at Google. So you've been there for the past 3 years. The thing that I learned is curious, what's, you know, is it more of a passive search or I guess what's going on? Is there a specific reason you're leaving or why are you looking around? So that's, I guess, one aspect of it. Okay. Yeah, I'm passive. Yeah, I'm active. Okay. Why are you looking to leave? Just to have like getting that out of the way first. Okay, great. They tell you the reason. Okay, then another thing, the copy that I use. All right, great. In an ideal world, what's next for you? What are you looking for? So what are you looking to get away from? And now what are you looking for? Okay. Yeah, I'm looking for X, Y, Z. Okay, great. That's kind of the first thing you get out of the way. And basically the things that they tell you, now you have ammo for You know, okay, great. Now I'm going to go and write a pitch of here's the company, here's the role. Now I know what they're looking for. So kind of in real time, I'm tweaking my pitch accordingly to talk more on why basically this role aligns. And then lo and behold, when they tell you exactly what they want, what they're looking to get away from and what they're looking for, and you know that and have it as ammo, you tweak your pitch accordingly. Lo and behold, wow, they're excited. This sounds perfect. You know, so it's just a small thing like that that I literally still use to this day that I think I learned 5, 6 years ago or whatever it was, you know.

So yeah, 100%, man. Were you gonna say something, Ben?

No, no, it's just great to, uh, as a reminder of like the sales techniques and how to, how to kind of dig for pain, find out outcomes, um, and then tie that into the sales pitch. I think it's, it's really, uh, really, uh, just a good reminder for when you're speaking.

I find it funny when people say recruitment's not a sales role. I'm like, what on earth are you talking about? Like We're convincing people to quit their jobs and then join your client. Like, that's like the hardest sale there is, right?

So whoever says it isn't a sale needs a slap in the face because it is pretty much just like purely sales.

Um, um, I just want to dive it. So, so, uh, you finish your first year, $200K, tough market, still very respectable. I think you start the next year. Can you talk me through, Ken, what what your day plan was. I want to almost imagine I was on Ken's shoulders during January 1st or whenever you went back to work, and I want to understand what were you doing on a daily basis and even a monthly basis to be able to hit a million? What were you focusing on hour by hour, day by day?

And honestly, when it really took off was the second half of 2021. I think it— so basically the million-dollar year was split up to, I think, my Q1, Q2, the first half of 2021 was like $300K solid, but I had no idea what was coming. Then the second half was like over $700K. It was nuts. So just really hockey sticked up. But yeah, basically the same things, you know, it's like I don't do it much anymore, but it was okay, targeted cold calls. It was— I call it the sniper approach and then also the wide net approach. Sniper approach being, okay, I'm going to do a very targeted cold call. I have a candidate that is really great. I have a company that they would be great for. I know who the hiring manager is. I know that they are hiring. So kind of sniping, you know, a lot of research goes into it. Pretty low leverage, but decently efficient, you could say. It works more often than it doesn't a lot of times. So just kind of sniper approach, cold calling. Great. Reference flips, candidate flips. I guess the wide net approach would be kind of like the spec email. So basically having a great candidate and less targeted, right? It's still targeted where it makes sense, but maybe you don't know exactly who the hiring manager is. You don't know if this company is hiring for that role. So kind of just like, frankly, a mix of those aspects. So the cold calling, the sniper approach, the wide net approach, and then also, you know, pay when you can, candidate flips for the more senior ones, reference flips, all these different things. And what really turned it around is there's actually another one of those things, blessing in disguise. I had a software engineering candidate that I've been working with for 3 or 4 months, had a really good relationship with him. He got an offer at one of my clients but ended up declining. I was bummed about it, but then the company he joined was called Gopuff. Not sure if you guys— I'm not sure if they even have in the UK, but it's like DoorDash basically. It's like DoorDash for instant needs, like gas station stuff. He accepted there. And then I remember looking at the company that he accepted at because I was trying to talk against him, like, hey, you shouldn't accept it. but I'm like, damn, they, they look really cool actually. A ton, a ton of funding. They're growing like nuts. And, uh, I remember he started and I asked him like, hey man, I see GoPuff is growing like crazy. Like, do they need help on the recruitment side? And this is like a mid-level engineer, like 2, 3 years experience. So definitely not a hiring manager by any means. And then he's like, oh yeah, I've heard we are. Let me introduce you to my manager, talk to him. Then got introduced to the head of talent, talked to him, and then GoPuff was my new client and My God, I, I, I'd say GoPuff bought me my first house basically, cuz I, I was there and they had like 8 other vendors, but they were hiring like unlimited basically software engineers. Wow. 25% fees. They're like $40K, $50K, $60K fees. Like, again, quite literally unlimited headcount. I think I did like 10, 12 placements in 6 months with them. Wow. So huge, huge account for me that just really took my $300K up to, up to a lot more. And then I also worked with AT&T. So it was a nice like balance of AT&T. It was also unlimited headcount basically for sales roles. They were small, like $15K fees, like $75K, $80K base, $14K, $16K fees, but a ton of positions. I found those were kind of like my nice consistent ones of, okay, you know, pay every single month pretty easily. I can do 3 or 4 AT&T deals. That's, you know, basically kind of the floor of $45,000 to $60,000 per month. And then kind of like my home run hitters were GoPuff. They had a high bar and the engineers that they wanted were super sought after. So I remember every time I got an offer for GoPuff, they would have, the candidate would have like 4 other offers. So it was like 50/50 if they would accept. So it was kind of like my 4, $45,000, $60,000. But then, you know, usually I'd get one GoPuff deal, so that's $100,000, or I'd get lucky. And it was, I think, October 2021. did like $220K in a single month because he got lucky and like 4 Gopuff deals went in, right? So it was kind of that nice balance of, okay, you got your big juicy deals, the home run hitters, but you also have like nice and consistent. Um, and also again, that was me working sales roles with AT&T and then like data scientists and software engineers and machine learning engineers with Gopuff at the same time. So it is possible. I think you can do it.

Crazy, man. It's insane how that all came from just asking a candidate, hey, uh, is your company hiring at the moment and can you Did you say, can you introduce me to the hiring manager?

Yeah, I was like, oh, you know, hey, so you guys are, I saw GoPuff was hiring a ton. Like if they talked about, you know, do we need help with it? He's like, yeah, absolutely. Like that's all they talk about actually. But yeah, it's one of those blessings in disguise too, because if he would've accepted at my client, like yeah, it would've been one fee, but it would've gotten a way, way bigger client in the back end of it. And that's one of those things too, like perspective. Like I remember I was mad on, okay, shit, I've missed out on this fee. But then you just kind of, your mind goes to, okay, what can I learn from this? And then also, can I still benefit? And then, okay, where do they go? I have a good relationship with them. He went to a company that's hiring a ton. Like, let's see if we can get in there. And then you kind of turn that loss into a win. But it's always like not, not ever accepting a loss for what it is. Like, what can you get from it? You can get something from everything, wins, losses, anything between.

It's a really good lesson. Cause it's like, Yeah, a lot of recruiters might have just got pissed off and then completely like ghosted that candidate and it's like done. But you turned that around and made it one of your biggest wins. So it's just really, really great lesson actually, and a perfect example of, of kind of enduring the pain and changing your perspective, I guess, on the situation, which is awesome. Um, I really would love to get to the speccing. I know you said— I'm not sure if you do as much speccing as you did back in the early days, uh, Ken, but you said you won close to 40 clients through spec emails alone.

Yeah, I had to turn it off recently. Like it works too well.

Yeah.

And right now, oh my God, my fiancée laughs. I always say like, oh my God, I think I'm the busiest I've ever been. I've been saying that like every week for the past like 6 months, I think. And like now it's like, oh my God, it's completely insane. Mark, I guess going back 2021, 2022, really, really hot markets. I think this one might be even hotter. Like it's cruelly insane, like the amount of business I'm coming in. Like I'm literally considering turning off my specs. Like I cannot handle it anymore. But on the spec side of things, to answer your question, I find a lot of people do them so, so wrong. I find a lot of spec emails read like, you know, hey hiring manager, I'm Kent. I specialize in this space. I, you know, yeah, this is my vertical. These are the other clients I work with, yada yada. And it's kind of all about me, me, me. Where they probably get, I don't know, 10, 20 emails like that per day and they usually go to spam. They're also a lot of these times written really long and it's just kind of like they sound the same as everyone else. And what I kind of, I guess, thought about is, okay, if I was a hiring manager and I'm getting all these emails and I actually did need to hire, what would I want to see? I'd want to see a nice short snappy email that's super easy to read. I wouldn't care about the recruiter. I would care about the candidate because that's my problem. I'm missing a candidate. So basically the way I do my spec emails is again, super short, like, hey, I'm Ken, especially in this space. Here's one of the best candidates I'm working with right now. 3, 4 bullet points of why they're amazing, maybe where they went to school, what they built, companies they worked at, their location, yada yada. Do they look worth a chat? That has so much better conversion. You wouldn't imagine than, than the latter. Like, I don't think the latter would, would, would ever work. Or I guess the former, rather, the former of just talking about yourself. I don't think that would ever work, ever, frankly, which is I think why people believe that specs don't work. But imagine you're a hiring manager, you need to hire, like, do you have people breathing down your neck? And then perfect candidate pops in your inbox, like, you're going to respond to that. And then they do, they say, hey, this candidate looks great. I said, perfect, let's hop on a meeting, take an intake call. Maybe the candidate is the right fit. If they're not, then I just do a custom search and boom, new client, right?

Love that. Oh, so many questions, Kent. So many questions. This is absolute gold. So are you attaching the CV or no CV?

No CV. I think if you do attachments, it triggers spam. It triggers spam.

Yeah.

A lot more compared if you just do no attachments. I find it ends up lesser. It can definitely still end up in spam, but lesser times if there's no attachments. So I just do quick bullet points. And then if they respond and they want to see the resume, I send it. This is also probably against the rules too, but I've, knock on wood, I've never been burned by it. I feel like most people are quite honest and good, but I've never had it where I sent the resume before I had terms signed, they tried to steal it. And I've been doing this a while, hundreds of different clients, it's never happened before. I find it kind of just builds a bit of trust as well. Like, hey, this isn't a fake candidate, they're real, look at their resume. So I send it after they respond on the first one. I try to avoid just for spam filter reasons.

Awesome.

And are you—

sorry, just go ahead.

And are you speccing one candidate at a time? Because I heard you said multiple candidates in the last— I'm not sure if that— do you spec one candidate at a time or multiple candidates?

Yeah, just one candidate.

Okay, cool.

So I have different like things going. Like I have a spec going for a software engineering candidate. I also have a spec going for a marketing candidate and a sales candidate. So those are different spec campaigns basically, but it's one candidate per email thread essentially.

And this is really interesting. So you've got, so you've got like a spec for a software campaign, for a software, uh, campaign for marketing, campaign for sales. I'd love to understand like what are you looking for in each of those campaigns. So maybe let's start off with sales, for example, Ken. Like if you're doing a sales campaign and you've picked, you know, your best candidate, What are the key— if we're looking at those 3 bullet points, what are the key things that you want to mention? Is it— I'm guessing for sales it's going to be like revenue generated, or like what are the 3 main things that you're looking for that's for you to think like this is going to work and this is going to—

Yeah, sales is a good example because sales recruitment 101 is actually have to consult my clients on this sometimes as far as like they get too complicated on like too broad what they're looking for, where the best sales candidates I've ever placed, like performing-wise, it's just a weirdly simple thing of, okay, what does the client sell? Say it's, I don't know, B2B SaaS to banks, for example, all you have to do is find a salesperson with a good track record. So like presence, close promotions, a lot of revenue, all that good stuff, selling a similar product. So another B2B SaaS product as similar as you can get to the same end client. So if they're selling a B2B SaaS product similar to yours to the same end client banks and they're doing it really well, presence, close, good revenue, all that good stuff, There's your hire. And then obviously culture fit. You want to be a good culture fit. There's your hire. Like that, that is it. So basically I find a sales candidate that's really strong and say they're doing fintech, they're selling B2B SaaS in fintech, find every single fintech company I could possibly find and then find every single VP of sales, head of sales, CROs I can find, send them in and the conversion is truly high because it's just so relevant.

You know, it's so good.

Is there any candidate that, that you, that firstly appeared good, Ken, but then, then you discovered wasn't actually a good NPC? What was that? Is, has that ever happened? Like, what would you classify as not NPCing and like not, not a good NPC, if that makes sense?

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's never been, oh, I thought, I think they're a good NPC, but they're not. They're, they're always good NPC because you can, all it is on NPC is they're just good on paper. Like they have good pedigree, they have good promotions, they have, you know, XYZ. There's a good candidate on paper and the paper is never going to change. Like they're always going to be good. That said, you know, how are they like culture-wise? Maybe they may not fit in the culture. Maybe they might not be interested in that specific client that I expect them to, which honestly happens more times than not. Like most times the clients respond and say, hey, this candidate looks great. Sometimes they turn out to be placements. I'd say less than 20%. More than often there's some little nuance like, okay, this like they're looking for something a little different or the candidates are looking for something a little different, but that's fine. And then I just create a custom search, but you still got a new client out of it. The second NPC is purely just to start the conversation, get a meeting on, take an intake call, sign a new client. And I don't think the goal of an NPC is a deal. Hey, great if it is, but that's not the goal. It's to get meetings, get clients on.

It's a really good nuance to mention.

Love it. Um, and what about software? Because software's a little bit harder than sales. I feel like if I— I'm not even, you know, I feel like if, if there was a— if there was an NPC campaign that I could probably succeed in, it's sales. Because I'm sorry, I probably just— because I feel like it's the most simple, the most obvious. Whereas I feel like other sectors, it's more nuanced. So for example, software, what would be— would— what would be the key things for a software candidate, do you think?

Software is really simple too. It's brainpower and pedigree. The software engineering candidate that I spec out right now is, he's so perfect because he's extremely passive and he's amazing on paper. Give you an idea. He went to MIT. I got his PhD. He's a two-time Math Olympiad, which if you don't know, is like the Olympics for math. That guy's a genius. And then he has a really good pedigree where he worked, he was a staff engineer at Airbnb. Staff engineer at Snapchat, and then now he actually started his own company. So he kind of has that like big pedigree, good company, like notorious for great engineers. And he's also gone zero to one, basically building his own app. So this guy is perfect to spec out. And again, it's simple, kind of like if you don't have a candidate like that, just find someone that looks good on paper. They went to a great school, they worked for companies that have notoriously high bars for engineers. There's your spec.

Mm.

Love it.

You simplify things really well, Ken, I've gotta say.

I feel like that's the key too. Yeah. And that's something I also wanna add on. Like, so hiring managers, recruiters, I feel like almost everyone try to overcomplicate things. And then when you get things really complicated, like your mind's jumbled, it's really hard to actually be productive when there's so many things to think about. Where almost anything, you can just simplify it down and it just becomes so much more digestible and you can attack it so much easier when it's just simple like that. So like sales, find someone— I talked to a candidate yesterday or a client yesterday that's looking for a head of sales and she had all these things. I was like, I've done a lot of these. Like find someone that has sold the same thing to the same end client and done it really, really well. That's a good culture fit. That is all you need. And she's like, I actually really like that. You know? So I feel like it just kind of takes the stress level down, makes it so much easier to attack and just digest and be productive when things are simplified. Of course, as much as possible.

Love that. And do you do follow-ups with your NPC campaigns, Kent? Like, is that a crucial part of the campaign or is it gonna kind of one and done kind of thing?

No, definitely crucial. So it's like my campaigns, they go for like a year, you know? So it's like the first email is, you know, hey, here's the candidate. And then maybe 3 days later, hey, did you see this candidate? 3 days later, hey, here's a video call or a video message from me so you can see I'm a real person. Then 7 days later, hey, did you see that video message? Hey, here's an update on the candidate. They're in later stages with these companies. Hey, here's the clients I've worked with that are relevant. Here's a bit about me. Hey, did you see this last email? It kind of just goes on and on. And then 6 months later, maybe I resend the candidate. And a lot of times, I'd say the most, responses I get on that first email. But a lot of times, you know, one will just pop up and it's like the 8th email in the sequence. It's been like 5 months and there's like, oh shoot, I actually just saw this. Thanks for the follow-up. Let's chat. You know, so that's just something that there's a lot of tools for that you can do the drip campaigns, but it's an easy tool to do and it can vastly increase conversions just by, you know, they're getting more emails over a longer period of time. They're more likely to see it.

I love that, man. Really good.

What percentage— just so we can— what percentage of responses do you get in the first email relative to the follow-up sequences? Is it like the vast majority on the first?

I'd say that's during the first because, yeah, they see it on the first and they're interested. The only ones where the follow-up helps is like if it goes to spam or like maybe they're on PTO or something, then the follow-ups like allow them to see it. Yeah. So yeah, I'd say most is on the first, but you should do the campaigns, like drip campaigns over a long period of time of like, and maybe they saw it and they're not hiring right now, but then you follow up 6 months later and, oh shoot, like, yes, now we're hiring, and now you're at the top of inbox.

Yeah, interesting. And, and percentage-wise, but yeah, got it. And I'm just trying to think about the kind of 80/20 rule. If it's like 80% of them respond in the first email, it's like recruiters should be putting all their energy into the, you know, the first email as the, as the main, the main thing, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

And just last one on the sequences. How much of it is— because you said you sent a video message. Is that like a prerecorded message that you're sending in a part of a campaign or—

It is just kind of like a more so like, hey, look at me, I'm a normal person. I'm real. I'm not some robot. Yeah, it's basically an intro to myself. Hey, I specialize in the space. I talk about a bit about the candidate. It's like a minute, you know, but it's basically like— and And honestly, sometimes that actually gets good responses too, like, oh, hey, I like your video message, right? At least it's a response, right? So I just throw that in there, right?

Love it.

Love that. And the, I guess the crux to every good NPC campaign is a good candidate, isn't it? That's the product. And so I'm curious, Ken, how do you— is there a good way to approach candidates and a bad way? And would you mind just describing what you've discovered over your many years or over your years of doing recruitment?

I'd say it's been many years, right? I'm on year 7. Getting there.

Okay.

And what do you mean by candidates? Like, is how I pick them, like who to spec out? Yeah.

So for instance, this like MIT guy, that's like an insane candidate. I'm guessing he gets approached by recruiters all the time, but you managed to get him. I don't know if there's a, you know, these insanely passive candidates. Is there any, any trick to getting their attention? Cause they're, they're, they're very valuable, aren't they? I'm guessing.

Yeah, I had a great job for him. It was a head of AI job for a super cool company. He ended up staying. So that's basically how I got him to talk to me. If I didn't have that job, I probably couldn't get him to talk to me. And that's where you can maybe like leverage someone else. Like, so say you're younger in your career, maybe you don't have a great job to get these candidates' attention. Bet someone else does. Like, look in your CRM, ask around your company. Like, someone has some great passive candidates somewhere. Like, unless you're just starting up your recruitment firm, like, I don't know what to tell you, but like a lot of times, like there's gonna be someone somewhere that you could just use as a spec and then just find a great one. But yeah, this candidate specific, got him because I had a great role and it ended up not working out, but it's okay 'cause I could still spec him out essentially. And that's how I got his resume and knew about him.

It's really interesting 'cause it's like, it comes back to the question of like, in order to get the candidate, you needed a great job. In order to get more jobs, you need a great candidate. It's like, I'm now, I'm thinking like, and we may not have the answer on this podcast, but if you started with scratch and you didn't have either, what would you do? Like what would be the easiest way to like succeed, if that makes sense?

Yeah. And if you're at a firm, like I said, there's got, there's someone, there's some candidate in your CRM that is gonna be good. Or just like ask someone in the space, like ask one of the more senior people like, hey, who's a great candidate that you have, that you have the resume? Like if you're at a firm, someone has it. 100% chance there's somewhere in your CRM that has it. And that's unless it's a brand new firm, you just got to figure something out, you know. Um, I don't know, I didn't really— I don't know, was in that experience, but yeah, ask around.

Yeah, well, I think from what I remember, Sam, correct me if I'm wrong, but from a lot of the calls that we've had as well, um, I'm guessing there's a lot of recruiters that will just cold call in companies and start speaking to candidates out the blue. Like, I think if you're good at sales, you can get people to open up and You may not get the MIT candidate, but there's got to be good candidates out there that you can speak to that aren't happy in their job right now that you could find something better for. Like, yeah, I think, think of—

I remember being called and be like, hey, I don't have anything for you, but like, what are you looking for ideally? And then, okay, great, send me your resume. Like, I'd say, you know, wouldn't be the best hit rate, be a partway to do it, but you'll get one, you know. And all you need is one. They can kind of use them for a spec like forever a lot of times.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

And I was going to say, just going back to some of the podcasts we've had with other recruiters, is that like once you understand the market more, it's so much easier to get a candidate on the phone and just speak their language for even— because all you really need is 5-10 minutes of rapport building and understanding their world to then keep them going, if you know what I mean. So I think that market knowledge is super important, especially at the beginning stages.

Um, getting on to that same subject, Ken, you are one of the rare breed of recruiters who are hitting big big numbers and don't really have one particular niche. You kind of niche hop, don't you? You go where the demand is, which I've always found fascinating. Um, because, you know, up until about, I don't know, 12 months ago, I was like, oh, you gotta have a niche. Like, if you're a big biller, you're always going to have a big— you have to have a niche. And then I started speaking to more top billers that didn't have niches, and they were hunting demand. I was like, oh wow, this is possible. Um, and so I'm trying to figure out the best question, but I know it's possible now. Now I'm trying to figure out what is it about you and these other like recruiters who are hunting demand that are able to make it work? Because I think for the vast majority of recruiters, they wouldn't be able to do what you're doing the same way and succeed in the same way, if that makes sense. So I'm trying to figure out how are you making it work? Like, I don't know, maybe that's too much of a ball question, but we can—

good question. I would say it's time to practice like simplify things again. And of course it takes research. Like I started off my career doing only engineering and I feel like that's probably the hardest one to hop into. You can't really just, if you do only sales, hopping into just engineering, like, God, that'd be a lot. So, because there's just so much jargon, like coding languages, like how the hell does it all work? Right? So that's probably the hardest one where I wouldn't recommend just hopping into or you'll kind of make a fool of yourself. But there's other, other verticals that are extremely simple. Sales. It's so simple. You know, marketing is honestly the same way. Okay, you need a marketing hire. Find someone that has marketing, a similar product or service to a similar demographic. Extremely simple. I do a lot of product. Also extremely simple. Find someone that's building or working on a similar product for the same end client. So a lot of these other verticals outside of engineering are quite, again, simple to understand. And of course, your first one, it's going to be a little rough and you have to, you know, learn the jargon and kind of do a little bit of research. but then you find, you know, just try it. You know, I remember my first one where I was doing, and my firm was also quite verticalized. I was just doing only engineering. And then my client asked me like, hey, it was GoPuff actually. Hey, we need help with marketing too. Can you do that? And I almost said no, like, oh no, I only do engineering because that's like kind of what you're programmed to say. And I was like, you know what? Yeah, sure. What is it? Great. Like, tell me what you need and I'll go find it. And that's kind of, What I mean by recruitment being like, have a fundamental skill. The intake calls for an engineering job or a sales job or a product job or a marketing job are very much the same. Hey, what, what do you need? What problem are they solving? And then you just go find it. And then again, your first one, your first marketing job ever that you do, if you only do engineering, might be a little rough around the edges, but then you do your first placement. Hey, now you know how to do marketing and then you get another one, you get better and better at it. So it's one of those things where, again, just try and simplify it. Recruitment is, it's not easy, but it is simple in a lot of ways. And then, you know, the more times you do it, the better you get. Um, yeah, extremely possible. Um, the only one that would be, I guess, wary if you only do sales, don't hop in engineering, but if you do engineering and you get a sales job or a marketing job or a product job or even an ops job, like it's, it's not that difficult. The intake call is the same, you know, and then just do some research on the back end so you don't make a fool of it for yourself, but I'm no genius and I figured it out.

Love it. I, I'm kind of thinking out loud here, but I think maybe part of the reason why you're able to succeed is because you're very good at cutting to the fun— like the truth of what's needed. Like, as you say, you're really good at simplifying things, and I think you're able to—

what's the problem they're solving, right? And that's kind of another way to look at recruitment is, okay, what problem is this person— why are you hiring them? What problem are they solving? Okay, great. We have that isolated. It's clear. Find someone that solved a similar problem in a similar environment. Well, there's your placement. A lot of times it is extremely— there's a lot of other stuff in the job description and whatnot, but that is the core. That is important. Probably the most important. What problem are they solving? Now you can just go talk to candidates. Hey, what problems were you solving here? Oh, wow. That sounds the exact same. You've done this before. You can probably solve this problem again. Great, you know, there's a placement.

Yeah, I love it. Really good. Um, we're coming towards the end of the pod, Ken, um, and there's a couple of things we want to mention definitely before we end, some really cool stuff including your, um, AI resume tool, which we'll hop into in a second. Um, are there any other things— like, imagine there's a recruiter listening to us right now and they need help, they need help to bill a million like you, and they're not quite there yet. Is there any kind of fundamental things that we haven't asked you about that we should be sharing to help these guys get to your level?

I would say the biggest thing is the mindset. Kind of going back to the first question, just really, and again, the mind is the only thing you can control and it's, it's not that hard to kind of just shift your perspective. It is a manual task at first, but once you kind of get in the hang of it, like this is your new mind now, it becomes a lot more natural. So just really kind of shift your mindset and it, it, it does take a lot of work. Like, I'm basically working, I don't even know how many hours I work per week. It's eyes open, eyes closed. I open my eyes, check my phone, start working, do not stop working on the week. I don't work on the weekends, thank God, because recruitment doesn't happen on the weekends. If it did, I'd probably work on the weekends too, but it slows down. But it's eyes open, eyes closed. And so it's one forewarning, like you can definitely be a good biller, $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 working 40, 50 hours per week. If you want to get into the million plus, it's going to take just, recruitment's very much like input equals output. So you got to put in a lot of input to get a lot of output. So if it's something you want, I mean, recruitment's a great industry to make a ton of money. I feel like it's kind of like a hidden gem. Like no one really thinks, like when you say to someone new that you meet, oh yeah, I'm a recruiter, they don't assume you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars. They probably think you're making, oh, $60,000, $70,000, maybe $100,000. But the best people in this business are, you know, I know people that are literally W-2ing $1 million, you know, and there's, you know, several there. You know, really any top builder in any company is probably in that at least $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 take-home range. And that takes, one, a good mindset and two, just a lot of hours. So I would say that'd be the first thing to kind of audit on yourself. Like, what am I thinking? What can I— whenever bad things happen, how do I react? And the correct answer is, what can you learn from it? Or I guess First, can I fix it? If you can't fix it, what can you learn from it? And once you learn something from it, how can you benefit from it? You know, whether that's doing a candidate flip or whatever else it is, just kind of always having that be your default leads to a lot more success, I think.

Is there anything you do consistently, Ken, to like maintain your mindset? Because for me, I don't know if you're the same, but like if I stop doing specific mindset tasks or like a specific discipline regime that I know keeps my brain sharp, like cold showers, jiu-jitsu, I go to the gym every morning. I have some certain habits and routines that keep me very, keep my mindset on track. Is there anything you do or is your brain just kind of naturally gravitated towards a good mindset?

I wouldn't say natural. I don't think anyone's brain naturally goes there just because it's like, yeah, it's human nature, right? Like bad things happen, you get sad. It's definitely a manual effort. So it's just kind of one realizing it's beneficial because it is a manual thing. It's hard to do. But once you kind of realize like, wow, this is extremely beneficial, it's just a manual thing that you have to do. Of course, there's other things like healthy body, healthy mind. So I'm also very much an avid gym goer, eating really healthy, eating really clean, having the energy be up. So I think that's an important part. Being a healthy body makes your healthy mind or makes it a lot easier to be positive. But really, at the end of the day, it's a manual effort. And if you're not thinking about it actively, you will drift off. But if you're constantly kind of thinking about, okay, let's maintain positive vibration, positive mindset, problem solving, good perspective. If you kind of always are striving to do that, it's just kind of always self-correct because naturally, even me, sometimes you kind of go and be sad and like, oh, woe is me or whatever else. Like, oh my God, I'm having bad luck. That, then you'd have to correct, no, it's not, you know.

Oh, awesome, man. So you're doing the, the kind of, uh, not standard stuff, but like gym, healthy eating. But it sounds like you spend a lot of time like correcting your thoughts on a day-to-day basis. So if you're about to drift into a bad mind— the mindset— you'll kind of catch yourself. So is it more work up there, like the catching your thoughts when they're about to spiral onto negativity?

Exactly. And it gets easier. Like I said, like at the very start when you're first kind of trying to shift everything, it's your natural tendencies are to the bad habits and whatnot. But after a while, it gets pretty automatic. But yeah, it's just kind of a manual thing you have to think about. And something else to think about is, again, kind of what I mentioned earlier, there's nothing in this world you can actually control. Can't control your heart. Your heart could stop at any second. You have no idea. Can't control anything external, of course. The only one thing you can control in this world is what you think about. And that's literally it. And so you do have full control over it. Anyone can do it, you know. So that's kind of the one thing that kind of empowers you of like, anyone can do it because you have control of one thing, you know.

So good. It's such a great reminder. I think people kind of forget that. I mean, when you said that to me, I was like, oh my God, he's so right. Like, I can literally think whatever I want right now.

Yeah, it's like, we forget that.

Yeah, it's so funny. It's such a simple but great reminder. Um, we will end the podcast, uh, Ken, on a little bit more about your AI resume tool. It sounds really fascinating, and I'm sure if it's coming from you, it's obviously going to be a good, a good piece of software. Would you— can you tell us a little bit about it, how it works and why you created it?

Yeah, I appreciate you shouting it out. It's, uh, called Casper AI. So basically the, the theory around it was, hey, stop getting ghosted with Casper, having a like, right? But it was one of those things where it was like a problem that I have and I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs kind of have this realization. By the way, I'm staying in recruitment. It's kind of like a side thing to any clients out there listening, still be in recruitment. But I remember basically the problem I was solving for myself is resume editing and interview prep. Super important for both of them. Like, if you can be the best candidate in the world, but if you have a terrible resume, It's the door. If you have a terrible resume, you're not getting an interview. And then say your resume's good, but you don't have good interview prep. You could still make do, but it increases the chances that you'll do well massively. And I was writing all the interview preps, basically custom typing them out. I was trying to make them custom and then eventually I was like, God, I'm too busy. So then I just had to do a generic one. And then editing resumes, I would have the candidates do it. Huge bitch, frankly. Like, yes, if it's a PDF, you have to convert it, all these things. So I was like, this is awful. So I started off just kind of like vibe coding something basically in Lovable. Like, okay, how can I— like, here's a standard resume template that I know works really well. Here are things like in sales, for example, like a terrible resume in sales is just explaining what you did, but doesn't have any numbers in there. It doesn't have who you sold to. It doesn't have any awards. It doesn't have any revenue or numbers. And so many sales resumes are like that. And I have to tell every candidate, like, you're not getting an interview. Like, I can tell, or without me, there's no shot you get an interview because in my notes I would say like, hey, here's who they're selling to. They're actually really good. But say I wasn't there and they just like submitted it. No shot they would get an interview. So essentially the tool is just an automatic resume editor. Makes it easy for me to edit. I basically use it myself to like put stuff in for them. And you can do like a, it's essentially you can go in there, make your resume just generally better, better ATS score, just better structure, the things that are actually important, it makes you put them in there. So if it's, if you don't have any numbers in there, it'll ask you, hey, what numbers did you do last year in 2024? It puts it in, has it all done for you. And then also you can basically put in the job description. Okay, here's the company, here's the website. Here's my resume, and then it uses AI and basically writes a custom resume or custom interview prep for you that I also just copy and paste into the candidate. And a lot of candidates have been like, holy shit, this is awesome. It's a fully custom one. Okay, here's what the company wants. Here's how you match. Here's how you should frame yourself. Here's the experience and wins you should emphasize. Here's where you don't fit. Here are kind of like ways to overcome those objections. And smart questions to ask about the company. So it's like a full-fledged interview prep that makes it what took me hours to add the resume and do custom interview prep. Now it's just bang, bang, bang. So it's kind of dual use. One, recruiters can use it. I use it every day. And then also it's meant for candidates as well that can do it for themselves and have the thought process behind it. But for the candidate side was, you know, I help 60 people plus per year get their dream jobs. but without me, there's a big chance that a lot, a massive chunk of them wouldn't have got it because I'm not there helping them. So now candidates can kind of have my brain, you know, to edit the resume and give interview prep without me being there. So kind of more, more scalable, you could say.

Brilliant.

Yeah, sounds fantastic.

When is it being released, Ken, and where do they need to go to find it out of interest?

Yeah, so it'll be released by this time, by the time you're watching this podcast. Um, so within the next week it's January. So it's going to be released probably by, I'd say the 21st. It should be live and it's CasperAI.com. So Casper like the ghost. So stop being ghosted with Casper.

Great name. I think you've got a great name for that.

So I couldn't believe the domain was—

I'm amazed you got it as well. That's incredible.

I was like, you know, something goes— and I was thinking like, oh, Casper, there's got to be some tech company. Yeah, yeah. There's not. There's a pillow company named Casper, but because it's not tech, I could use it.

So funny. How's it?

Hell yeah. Buy immediately. It was like $10.

Wow, man, that was awesome.

Yeah.

Um, Ken, thank you so much for this, uh, for your time today, mate. Honestly, super valuable. I hope people listening got some value today. I definitely did. Um, so thank you so much, man. It was an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast and really appreciate your time today.

Yeah, of course. Great talking to you guys. Thanks for having me on.

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and Spotify. Tune in for another episode next week, and we look forward to seeing you again very soon. Peace and love.