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The Resilient Recruiter

The Resilient Recruiter

By: Recruitment Coach Mark Whitby
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Join "the Recruitment Coach" Mark Whitby as he and his guests unpack the secrets of what it takes to be a profitable and long-lived professional in the recruitment industry.(c) Breakthrough Coaching Ltd T/A RecruitmentCoach.com. All rights reserved. Career Success Economics Leadership Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Scaling: How to Build a $65M Recruiting Business That is Sellable, with Mike Kelly

    Scaling: How to Build a $65M Recruiting Business That is Sellable, with Mike Kelly
    Oct 7 2026
    For the first five to six years of his first recruiting business, Mike Kelly did everything himself. Cold calls, interviews, client meetings, even payroll. He began handing off the work when he asked himself: what's the highest and best use of my time? Mike is the Founder and CEO of Conexus Advisors and has grown and exited three professional services businesses. In this conversation, he shares how Conexus reached $65M in revenue, with 50 internal team members and 230 consultants working on client projects. The firm generates over $750,000 in gross profit per desk, including researchers. About 85% of the business is project consulting and interim advisory. Mike explains how that revenue supports growth and walks through the division of work between researchers, screeners, recruiters, and account executives. Two people work on the database all year so fee earners can spend their time talking to clients and candidates. Mike also explains how he develops managers who can take over coaching and grow their own teams. He shares why top billers don't always make good managers, how overrides and equity reward leadership, and what allowed him to hand over his own book of business for the first time in 28 years. In this episode: How to identify the work you should hand off first Why Mike and his partners went nine months without a paycheck How a split desk works from research through to offer Why account executives personally prepare candidates for interviews How staying within a clear niche improves desk productivity The conversion targets Mike uses to assess recruiting performance How to develop and reward team leaders What makes a recruiting firm sellable Episode highlights: [09:24] Building a business instead of owning a job [12:15] Protecting recruiter time and generating $750K GP per desk [14:20] The fear that keeps owners doing everything [16:33] Funding the team before paying yourself [19:24] How the split desk works [38:25] Conversion targets and the daily call report [48:54] What makes a recruiting firm sellable [54:49] Developing managers who take over coaching About Mike Kelly: Mike Kelly is the Founder and CEO of Conexus Advisors, an advisory, interim and executive search firm focused on the Office of the CFO. A former CPA, Mike began his career at Ernst & Young. Over the course of his career, he has founded, scaled and sold three professional services firms, including Spinnaker Financial Resources, Beacon Resources and Tactical Cloud. Connect with Conexus: https://conexusadvisors.com/ Podcast Partners: This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM built for serious recruiting businesses. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow It is also brought to you by Juicebox, the modern AI platform for recruiting. Juicebox combines more than 30 datasets with AI models to support search, outreach and pipeline management in one workflow. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox Free Resources: Book your FREE 30-minute strategy call: https://www.recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/ Take the Recruitment Business Scorecard: https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard Listen to more episodes: https://recruitmentcoach.com/podcast/ Connect with Mark Whitby: Mark on LinkedIn Mark on Twitter: @MarkWhitby Mark on Facebook Mark on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter so you never miss an episode.
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • How Recruiters Go From Dabbling With AI to Real Results, with Vanessa Raath

    How Recruiters Go From Dabbling With AI to Real Results, with Vanessa Raath
    Oct 14 2026
    Vanessa Raath recently trained a team in Canada who thought they were using AI quite well. They all had the paid version. They just didn’t know what it could do. Vanessa helps recruitment teams put AI to work on their desks. She was already known worldwide for talent sourcing training when ChatGPT launched in November 2022. Within six months, she recognized how much sourcing work it could support and began training recruiters on AI. Today, she works with teams around the world from a small town on the South African coast. In this conversation, Vanessa walks Mark through a repeatable workflow that combines a raw CV, interview notes and a LinkedIn profile into a formatted CV and executive summary in under five minutes. She explains how she gets AI to help write her sourcing prompts, organizes client information, and teaches it to sound like her. They also discuss what recruiters need to do with the time they save. Vanessa explains why she ignores headhunters she can’t find online, and why a visible presence in your market gives clients and candidates a reason to trust you. If your team pays for AI but is still dabbling with it, this episode will help you decide what to set up first. In this episode: How to identify a recurring recruitment task for AI to help with Building a reusable skill for candidate CVs and executive summaries Why Claude gave Vanessa the best results when she tested three tools Removing sensitive personal information before uploading candidate documents Using Exa for candidate research and Tavily for competitor intelligence Getting AI to ask questions before it writes your sourcing prompt Using skills, projects and examples of your writing to improve the output Building the personal brand that helps clients and candidates trust you Episode highlights: [06:22] Getting up to speed with the right guidance [08:38] CVs and executive summaries in under five minutes [12:03] Testing the same workflow in Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude [25:55] Getting AI to help write your sourcing prompt [30:56] Dictating email replies with Copilot in Outlook [34:11] How Vanessa uses skills alongside projects [48:44] Why she checks the person behind a recruiter’s message [59:25] Start with an end goal and work towards it with AI About Vanessa Raath Vanessa Raath is a South Africa-based recruitment trainer who works with recruitment teams worldwide on AI and talent sourcing. She was already known internationally for sourcing training before expanding into AI following ChatGPT's launch. Her first course focused on helping recruiters build a personal brand. Connect with Vanessa LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessaraath/ Website: https://www.vanessaraath.com/ Tried and Tested AI Tools: https://start.me/p/l6bkk7/vanessa-raaths-tried-tested-ai-tools Podcast Partner This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow, an AI-native ATS and CRM with built-in data enrichment for recruiting businesses. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow Free Resources Recruitment Business Scorecard: https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard Free 30-minute strategy session with Mark: https://recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/ Connect with Mark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/ Twitter: @MarkWhitby Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRecruitmentCoach/ Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter for new episodes every week: https://plinkhq.com/i/1489513354
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    1 hr
  • How a $4M Recruiting Firm Rebuilt After a Brutal Year, with Josh Volinsky

    How a $4M Recruiting Firm Rebuilt After a Brutal Year, with Josh Volinsky
    Oct 1 2026
    A hot market can hide a lot of problems. Josh Volinsky and his partners launched Synergy Search in September 2020, and the accounting and finance recruiting firm has reached as high as $6M in revenue. When the market normalized, recruiters who had learned to work transactionally struggled to adapt, a run of hires didn't work out, and the founders recognized that they weren't tracking the activity behind their results. "We got sloppy. And when you aren't tracking activity in any way, you can't see it coming." In August 2025, a breakfast conversation between the three founders became the start of what Josh calls the reboot. That October, three recruiters each billed over $100K in a single month. At the time of recording, Synergy has 15 employees and revenue in the mid- to upper-$4 M range. Josh explains how they introduced accountability into a firm built on freedom, what their scorecard now measures, and why shared office days became part of the reset. He also discusses supporting the team following the death of their colleague Cara, and the training process that has helped accountants become successful recruiters. In this episode: How a strong market can disguise weaknesses in your recruiting business The breakfast question that prompted Synergy's reboot How conversion data encouraged a top biller to improve Why Josh prioritizes client interviews, job orders and calls How a Bullhorn-connected phone system reduced manual administration Why Synergy hires accountants and trains them to recruit How a written blueprint and regular role plays support new recruiters Episode highlights: [01:24] Hiring accountants as recruiters [07:28] Preparing financially to launch the business [18:11] Dividing responsibilities between three founders [22:32] Building the recruiting blueprint [25:29] Practical role plays that involve the whole team [43:58] The market shift that exposed transactional habits [48:31] The breakfast conversation that started the reboot [54:06] The three recruiting metrics Josh prioritizes About Josh Volinsky Josh is a co-founder of Synergy Search, an accounting and finance recruiting firm with offices in Maryland and Nashville. He began recruiting in 2007 and launched Synergy with Mark Hammond and Gary Palank in September 2020. He remains an active biller and joined The Pinnacle Society in spring 2025. Connect with Josh LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshvolinsky/ Synergy Search: https://synergysearch.com/ Podcast Partners Recruiterflow: The AI-native ATS and CRM built for serious recruiting businesses. https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow Juicebox: The modern AI platform for recruiting search, outreach and pipeline management. https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox Free Resources Take the 7-Figure Freedom Scorecard: https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call: https://recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/ Connect with Mark Whitby LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/markwhitby Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRecruitmentCoach/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recruitmentcoach/ Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter: https://plinkhq.com/i/1489513354 What would you change if you could start your recruitment firm again today?
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    1 hr and 4 mins
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