The Resilient Recruiter

While much of the recruitment industry was flat last year, Sachin Ruparelia grew billings by 33% and kept hiring.

Sachin is the Founder and Managing Director of Camino Partners and Camino Search. Over the last couple of years, his businesses have grown net fee income by 20% and then 33%, while scaling to around 37 people across London and Tampa.

A big part of that growth has come from community-led business development. Instead of calling prospects to ask if they're hiring, Camino creates reasons for clients and prospects to want to speak with them. They run events, CFO dinners and networking sessions. They publish salary surveys and a 120-page Global Report for the private equity market.

Sachin calls it "the art of selling without selling."

In this conversation, Sachin explains how those events and insights turn into real recruitment opportunities, including the important step recruiters often miss: making the commercial ask after they've earned the conversation.

You'll also hear how Sachin approaches the other side of scaling: people. He shares how to know when it's time for your next support hire, why an operations manager can be one of the smartest early hires for a growing firm, and his A's, B's and F's approach to hiring people who are better than you in the areas where you're weak.

Sachin also speaks openly about growing up in a violent household and the two years of psychodynamic counseling that helped him understand how those experiences had shaped his behavior. He explains how that self-awareness made him a better husband, father, friend and leader, and why he now speaks openly about mental health in recruitment.

In this episode, you'll learn:

How Camino grew NFI by 20% and then 33% while scaling to around 37 people

How community-led BD creates conversations without leading with a sales pitch

Why Sachin runs one to two events a month and how he gets the right people into the room

How a 120-page insight report creates multiple reasons to contact prospects

How to turn events and content into actual recruitment opportunities

When a growing recruitment firm should make its first operations hire

How the A's, B's and F's test helps founders hire around their weaknesses

Why is self-awareness becoming increasingly important as you build a larger team

Episode Highlights

[08:50] Setting up the business at 31 and appointing a chairman
[09:33] The two years of therapy Sachin calls game changing
[17:20] Two verticals, 37 people and 33% growth in a flat market
[22:51] The first scaling lesson: hire people better than you
[29:25] Community-led BD: the art of selling without selling
[39:07] Insight-led BD and Camino's 120-page Global Report
[52:55] The first operations hire for a scaling recruitment firm
[54:50] The A's, B's and F's approach to hiring around your weaknesses

Sachin Ruparelia Bio

Sachin Ruparelia is the Founder and Managing Director of Camino Partners and Camino Search. He launched Camino Partners in 2012 with two former colleagues, initially specializing in accountancy and finance before expanding into "mission control" roles within recruitment businesses.

Camino Search works within the private capital ecosystem, placing CFOs and other senior finance professionals, along with corporate development, M&A and origination talent, into private equity-backed technology-enabled and business services companies.

The business operates from London and Tampa and has grown to around 37 people. Over the last two years, Camino's NFI grew first by 20% and then by 33%. Sachin's next plan, Mission 234, is to double headcount and triple NFI over four years.

Connect with Sachin

Sachin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachinruparelia/
Camino Partners: http://www.caminopartners.co.uk
Camino Search: http://www.caminosearch.co.uk

Sponsors

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

Connect with Mark Whitby

Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call: www.recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/

Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/

There's a belief in recruitment that scaling a firm means scaling headcount.
Dave Fox has built a different model. His fully remote technology staffing firm, Focus GTS, generates more than $10 million in annual revenue with a team of just 11 people.
Early on, Dave assumed he would need 80 to 100 people to build the business he wanted. He also thought a 360 model and broader market coverage would be the right path. Over time, he found a different way to grow: stay close to one specialist market, build a split-desk team of strong people, and make AI part of how the whole business works.
Dave is the founder of Focus GTS, a Miami-based technology staffing firm that specializes in the Adobe Marketing Cloud ecosystem. He started in recruitment with the S3 Group, working his way from trainee consultant to manager and director before launching his own business eight years ago.
In this conversation, Dave explains why he is done with the "chase game" of constantly pursuing new opportunities. His focus now is on becoming so useful and well-known in his market that clients and candidates come to him.
That means creating free tools that solve real problems, publishing useful content, and using AI research agents to stay close to key customers. It also means giving every member of his 11-person team access to Claude and Claude Code, then creating a culture where people share what they are learning.
Dave is not suggesting AI is a shortcut to success. He spends 50 to 60 hours a week learning and building with it. But he makes a strong case that agency owners need to rethink the old relationship between headcount, growth, and productivity.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why Dave moved from a 360 model to a split-desk structure
The assumption that made him think he needed 80 to 100 people
Why a smaller, better-paid team can outperform a larger one
How Focus GTS became known in the Adobe Marketing Cloud market
How free tools and useful content can create inbound conversations
How AI research agents help Dave's team stay close to top clients
How to make AI a shared team habit rather than a founder-only project
The mindset Dave believes agency owners need as AI changes the market
Episode highlights:
[02:49] Why Dave launched Focus GTS after walking away from a potential partnership
[07:53] Building a fully remote technology staffing business
[10:46] Why Focus GTS uses a split-desk model
[18:18] The AI inflection point that changed Dave's view of growth
[23:28] Building free tools for a specialist market
[29:42] Using AI research agents on Focus GTS's top five clients
[34:52] How to become a celebrity in your recruitment niche
[45:25] How all 11 team members learn and use AI together
Sponsors:
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 within a single workflow. Learn more: https://recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox
Guest Bio:
Dave Fox is the founder of Focus GTS, a fully remote technology staffing firm based in Miami. Focus GTS generates more than $10 million in annual revenue with a team of 11 and has been recognized on the Inc. 5000 list. Dave and his team specialize in the Adobe Marketing Cloud ecosystem and use AI across research, marketing, sales, website development, and client delivery.
Connect with Dave Fox on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davefoxceo/
Learn more about Focus GTS: https://www.focusgts.com/
Connect with Mark Whitby:
Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call: www.recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/
Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/
Mark on Twitter: @MarkWhitby
Mark on Facebook
Mark on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach
Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter

David Paffenholz never worked as a recruiter. He studied economics at Harvard, led growth at Snap, and built a couple of consumer products with his co-founder, Ishan, before the two of them turned their attention to hiring. What they noticed was that most of the recruiting tech stack is built for candidates who are already in the funnel, while the harder and more valuable problem sits right at the top: finding the right people and getting them to reply.
The platform they built, Juicebox, is now used by more than 5,000 customers, and around 40% of them run AI agents that source candidates autonomously for open roles. One agent per role. Each learns from your feedback, sources a set number of new candidates every day, and tells you when the talent pool needs a different approach.
In this special sponsored episode, David walks Mark through what that looks like on a real desk. He covers the four-step outreach sequence Juicebox recommends, why generic AI-written emails hurt response rates and how to keep yours sounding like you, and how the platform searches and ranks candidates without a LinkedIn Recruiter seat. He also makes the case that recruiting will start to look more like executive search, with agents handling the research and sourcing while recruiters spend their time where they create the most value: building trust with candidates and clients.
He also shares the honest version of building the company, including the two difficult years when it was just him and Ishan, before Juicebox found momentum.
In this episode, you'll discover:
How one AI agent per open role sources candidates every day
The four-step outreach cadence Juicebox recommends, and why the fourth email waits
Why generic AI-written emails hurt your response rate, and how to keep yours sounding like you
How to search and rank candidates without relying on LinkedIn Recruiter
When to add LinkedIn and phone steps to an automated sequence
Why the future of recruiting may look more like executive search
What helps recruiters and employers win the best talent
The two difficult years before Juicebox found momentum
Episode highlights:
01:22 Why David and his co-founder chose to build for recruitment
03:41 The top-of-funnel problem most recruiting tools ignore
10:27 The four-step email cadence that gets more replies
12:00 Why AI-written outreach often sounds generic
24:57 The recruiting org chart of the future
26:49 What one AI agent per role does each day
32:18 Why recruiting will increasingly resemble executive search
51:01 The difficult two years before the business found momentum
Podcast Partner
This special episode is sponsored by Juicebox, the AI recruiting platform that helps recruiters find and reach the right candidates. Book a demo: recruitmentcoach.com/juicebox
About David Paffenholz
David Paffenholz is the co-founder and CEO of Juicebox, an AI recruiting platform used by more than 5,000 customers to find and reach candidates. He studied economics at Harvard and led growth at Snap. He and his co-founder, Ishan, built several consumer products before founding Juicebox, which went through Y Combinator in 2022.
Connect with Mark
Free 30-minute strategy call: recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mwhitby
Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach
Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter so you never miss an episode.

What separates recruiters building momentum from those whose desks are quietly drifting?
Benjamin Mena has recorded more than 300 episodes of The Elite Recruiter Podcast. Mark Whitby has done the same with The Resilient Recruiter. Between them, they have interviewed hundreds of high-performing recruiters and repeatedly seen the same success patterns.
Ben begins this conversation with an honest admission. His recruiting revenue had been drifting. It was not collapsing, but his attention had become divided and the work he should have completed months earlier had not happened.
That changed the conversation. Ben and Mark were not simply identifying what elite recruiters do. They were examining why proven fundamentals remain difficult to execute, even when you know exactly what they are.
"The wealth in our industry is built on going day after day, doing the most boring basics."
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
Why successful recruiters plan the next day before the current one ends
How rigorous qualification protects your time, energy and revenue
Why hyper-specialization is common among the industry's top billers
How engagement fees test whether a client is genuinely committed
Why recruiters need to rebuild the sales skills weakened during easier markets
How cornerstone clients create a more stable recruitment desk
How LinkedIn, podcasts, newsletters and SEO can generate inbound opportunities
Why long-term relationships become more valuable as AI changes recruitment
Episode Highlights:
[02:08] The revenue drift that made Ben delay this conversation
[07:18] Defining success beyond recruitment billings
[11:33] Why elite recruiters plan tomorrow before today ends
[15:21] How rigorous qualification protects time and revenue
[21:46] Becoming the go-to recruiter in a hyper-niche market
[29:16] Rebuilding the sales skills weakened during easier markets
[36:36] Building an inbound engine that compounds over time
[46:05] How AI could widen the gap between recruiters
About Benjamin Mena
Benjamin Mena is the host of The Elite Recruiter Podcast and Managing Partner of Select Source Solutions, an executive search firm specializing in federal recruiting for government contractors.
Ben has 20 years of recruiting experience across major defense contracts and complex federal programs. Through his podcast, recruiter community and virtual summits, he brings together top billers, firm owners and industry leaders to share what is working on the desk.
Connect With Benjamin Mena
The Elite Recruiter Podcast: https://www.eliterecruiterpodcast.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminmena/
If you want to build a recruitment desk around disciplined execution, market authority and relationships that compound, this episode is a must-listen.
Podcast Partners
This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow — an AI-first ATS and CRM with built-in data enrichment. Book a demo at recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow.
Free Resources
Recruitment Freedom Scorecard: https://mark-rf1pexbm.scoreapp.com/
Book a free 30-minute strategy call: https://recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/
Connect With Mark Whitby
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwhitby/
Twitter: @MarkWhitby
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RecruitmentCoach/
Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach
Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter so you never miss an episode.

Most recruiters know they should be using AI more. What they don't know is where to start, what to connect, and what it costs. Reyhan Khan makes all of that concrete.
Reyhan runs RecruiterGTM and has spent the last 60 days setting up Claude for 35 recruitment agencies. He's based in Lisbon, originally from Pakistan, and spent years running operations for US agencies before launching his own business. He places offshore talent from South Africa, Pakistan, and Latin America into recruitment agencies, which means he operates as a recruiter himself and follows the same process he teaches.
In this episode, Reyhan walks through the complete setup: how to connect your ATS, outreach tools, and data sources into Claude so you can run BD, sourcing, and outreach from a single screen. He covers honest tool reviews, a full tech stack cost breakdown, and the three moves to make first if you want results this month, including one approach most recruiters have never considered.
In this episode:
How Reyhan set up Claude for 35 recruiters in 60 days, and what he found every time
Why connecting your ATS, outreach tools, and data sources to Claude changes the economics of BD
The recommended tech stack and cost breakdown for solo recruiters and full teams
Why downloading your LinkedIn connections and ranking them by fit is the highest-return move most recruiters haven't made
Honest tool reviews: RecruiterFlow, Loxo, Bullhorn, and more
Why Claude builds market maps at a fraction of the cost of other tools
How a recruiter over 60 who described himself as "not tech savvy" built six Claude agents
Why offshore talent and Claude work better together than either does alone
The recruiter who made a placement by going back to one person she already knew
Episode Highlights:
[0:00] Intro
[02:33] From electrical engineer to online business operator
[07:20] Becoming Head of Operations as the agency grew to 45 people
[12:56] Deploying Claude for 35 recruiters in 60 days
[15:25] Where recruitment agencies need AI most
[18:30] Connecting your recruitment tools inside one Claude cockpit
[22:43] How a recruiter over 60 built six Claude agents
[24:55] The Claude workflow that produced half a dozen placements
[27:45] Reyhan's recommended recruitment technology stack
[31:27] Why every client and candidate conversation should be recorded
[41:29] Building lower-cost market maps with Claude
[47:36] The highest-return place to begin with AI
[52:26] Combining offshore talent with Claude
Listen: https://recruitmentcoach.com/podcast/
Podcast Partner: Recruiterflow, an AI-first ATS and CRM with built-in agents. https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow
Free Resources: Take the 7-Figure Freedom Scorecard at https://recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard or book a free strategy session at https://recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/
About Reyhan Khan: Reyhan Khan runs RecruiterGTM, helping recruitment agencies build go-to-market systems using AI and Claude. Over the course of his career, he moved from electrical engineering to freelance copywriting to Head of Operations at a US agency, before spending two and a half years coaching recruitment agencies. He now lives in Lisbon, Portugal, where he places offshore talent and helps agencies build AI-enabled recruiting systems. Find him on LinkedIn or at recruitergtm.com.
Connect with Reyhan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reyhankhann/
Website: recruitergtm.com
Connect with Mark Whitby:
Free 30-minute strategy call: www.recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/
Mark on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhitby/
Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter: https://recruitmentcoach.com/podcast/