The Resilient Recruiter

Sam Johnstone has never worked for a recruitment agency.

He spent three and a half years selling video technology to agency owners. Then he decided to go and do it himself.

Four years in, he has a portfolio of repeat clients and inbound leads from LinkedIn. All built from a cabin on the Scottish coast with a few thousand pounds in the bank.

Sam is the founder of Real Recruit, a specialist sales recruitment firm based in Glasgow. He built his entire business around video - using it to prospect for new clients, market roles, screen candidates, and deliver shortlists. It's his single biggest differentiator for winning clients over every other agency they're talking to.

In this episode, Sam breaks down his complete video process from first outreach to final shortlist. He explains how a 30-second personalised video and a five-minute callback rule consistently gets prospects to take his call. He explains how filming video job adverts inside client offices builds relationships that standard agencies can't match. And he shares the hiring day model that compresses weeks of interviews into a single afternoon.

Sam also covers the harder lessons. A hiring day that cost him money. A client who took 180 days to pay. The payment term changes he made after that. And the monthly recurring revenue model he built to create more predictable income.

In this episode you'll discover:

The 30-second video formula that gets cold prospects to pick up the phone

Why Sam sends personalised videos to multiple decision makers at the same company on the same day

How filming a video job advert on-site at a client's office wins repeat business

The hiring day model and how to run one

Why a client who haggles on your deposit is a red flag

How Sam rebuilt his payment terms after a client took 180 days to pay

How Clay, SourceWhale, and Claude Cowork replaced LinkedIn Recruiter in his tech stack

Episode highlights:

[1:18] What a video-first recruitment agency actually means

[15:15] The BD routine: personalized videos, watch notifications, calling within five minutes

[17:54] The 30-second video formula

[22:29] How a Rangers fan story turned into Sam's first big retainer

[25:16] Why Sam works on deposit - and what clients receive in return

[32:42] The hiring day model explained

[43:55] The hiring day that cost Sam money and what he learned

[49:32] Getting paid 180 days late - and the changes that followed

[1:08:16] Clay, SourceWhale, and Claude Cowork replacing LinkedIn Recruiter

If your outreach isn't getting responses, this episode will give you a completely different approach to winning clients.

Connect with Sam: LinkedIn: Sam Johnstone Website: realrecruit.co.uk

Connect with Mark: Free strategy session: recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session Mark on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mwhitby Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach

Recruitment business owners are being pitched new tools every single day. Most of it gets bought based on fear of missing out, not because there is a real problem that needs solving.

Nitin Sharma is the founder of Rectools IO, an independent directory of recruitment technology, and the host of Rectalk, the most followed recruitment podcast on YouTube with over 100,000 subscribers. He speaks to more recruitment technology companies than almost anyone in the industry while staying completely independent.

Before all of that, Nitin built a recruitment agency to 15 people and close to 5 million pounds in revenue. Then it failed. Sitting with an insolvency practitioner, being asked why he did not know the answers to basic questions about his own business, was the moment that shaped everything he does now.

In this episode, Nitin shares why most recruitment businesses are buying technology in the wrong order, how to work out what you actually need, and the one question every business owner should ask before spending anything on new tools.

You will hear why your business finances almost always mirror your personal finances, the three conversations to have before buying any new tool, how to audit what you already own before spending anything new, and why a CRM with strong back office functionality is the one thing every recruitment business genuinely needs, regardless of size or model.

Nitin also breaks down where AI will genuinely replace recruitment work first, how to spot a GPT in a wrapper before you buy it, and why legacy recruitment software is under more threat than most people realize.

Episode highlights:

2:19 Building to close to 5 million pounds in revenue and the collapse in December 2023

6:17 The real reasons the agency failed 15:56 Why business finances mirror personal finances

25:47 How Rectools IO and Rectalk became the industry's biggest YouTube channel

31:13 What recruitment business owners should be doing on LinkedIn

46:47 Why legacy recruitment software is under threat

48:10 The recruitment work AI will automate first

49:06 How to spot a GPT in a wrapper

50:53 The one question to ask before buying any recruitment tool

53:38 How to check what you already have before spending anything new

59:48 Why a CRM is the one non-negotiable

Connect with Nitin: LinkedIn: Nitin Sharma

Website: rectools.io

YouTube: Rectalk Podcast

Connect with Mark: Free strategy call: recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session

Seven Figure Freedom Scorecard: recruitmentcoach.com/scorecard

Mark on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mwhitby

Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach

Adding more people is how you grow a recruitment firm.

Michelle Lownie spent years believing it. Then she watched it go wrong.

Michelle is the CEO and co-founder of Eden Scott, one of Scotland's leading recruitment firms. She started in recruitment in 1989, filing documents and making tea at Melville Craig on a six-week summer contract. She stayed 15 years. In 2003, she co-founded Eden Scott alongside Guy Martin and Chris Logue.

Today, Eden Scott generates approximately £25 million in annual revenue with 38 consultants across Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Glasgow. At its peak, the business had nearly 70 people.

In this episode, Michelle talks through what it took to rebuild around a smaller, higher-performing team - and how that decision changed everything about how the business runs today.

She covers the hiring process Eden Scott uses to find recruiters who don't need managing, why they've stayed on the 360 model for 23 years while everyone else splits desks, and what keeps recruiters at Eden Scott for years in an industry known for high turnover.

She also shares what the last 18 months have looked like on the ground in Scotland - and why relationship-led recruitment still matters more than ever.

In this episode, you'll learn:

How Eden Scott rebuilt from 70 people down to 38 - and what changed

How COVID became an opportunity to rebuild around the right people

The hiring process - including why interviewers never discuss candidates between stages

What Michelle is actually looking for when she makes a hiring decision

How their commission and retention structure works, including sabbaticals at 5, 10, and 15 years

How the 360 full-desk model still produces a £25 million business

What consistent business development actually looks like in practice

Episode highlights:

[13:39] How COVID forced a complete rethink of the business

[17:51] Why Michelle has no interest in scaling back to 70 people

[26:29] Why Eden Scott has stayed on the 360 model while others split desks

[35:30] The hiring process - and why interviewers don't discuss candidates between stages

[45:11] The retention strategies that keep consultants at Eden Scott for years

[52:18] Why good recruiters don't need to be pushed

This episode is sponsored by Recruiterflow - an AI-first ATS and CRM built for recruiters who want to spend less time on admin and more time on relationships. See it in action at recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow.

About Michelle Lownie: Michelle Lownie is the CEO and co-founder of Eden Scott, one of Scotland's leading recruitment firms with annual revenue of approximately £25 million. She began her career in 1989 at Melville Craig and co-founded Eden Scott in 2003 alongside Guy Martin and Chris Logue. The firm operates across Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Glasgow with 38 consultants.

Connect with Michelle: LinkedIn: Michelle Lownie Website: edenscott.com

Connect with Mark: Free 30-minute strategy session: recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session Mark on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/markwhitby Follow on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach

Sourcing frustration is usually diagnosed as a volume problem. Not enough candidates in the funnel. Not enough searches. Not enough outreach.

Steven Lu thinks it's the opposite problem.

Steven is the co-founder and CEO of Pin.com and the founder of Interseller, a recruiting outreach platform that helped place over 40,000 candidates before being acquired by Greenhouse in 2021. After two years inside Greenhouse studying the top of the recruiting funnel, he launched PIN to solve a specific, persistent problem: the candidates most worth finding are the ones current sourcing tools miss.

In this episode, Steven explains why 30% of top talent is essentially invisible in LinkedIn searches. He breaks down how PIN's shadow resume technology rebuilds candidate profiles from external data to surface people who've never described themselves online. He also shares the outreach approach that generates 30 to 40% response rates, the exact sequence he recommends (3 emails and 2 LinkedIn touches), and the four most common mistakes that quietly destroy deliverability.

The bigger picture matters for every recruiter working in an increasingly noisy market. The era of high-volume outreach is coming to an end. Email providers are measuring engagement signals. Spam filters are getting sharper. The recruiters who win over the next two or three years will be the ones who source fewer candidates, make each one count, and treat every outreach like it's going to the one person who can fill the role.

This is a practical conversation about what's changing in sourcing and how to address it.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Why the most qualified candidates rarely appear in standard keyword searches

How PIN's shadow resume makes unfindable candidates findable

What PIN's autopilot mode does and how to set it up with just two inputs

Why you should cap your outreach sequence at five steps

The four most damaging outreach mistakes recruiters make

Why including a Google Doc link beats pasting the job description every time

How to structure omnichannel outreach across email and LinkedIn

Why the top 1% of billers operate from a very short candidate Rolodex

Episode highlights:

[3:49] From Interseller to Greenhouse to PIN - Steven's journey

[9:34] The talent curve: why top candidates don't show up in search

[13:36] PIN's North Star KPI: 7 out of 10 candidates accepted

[27:32] Autopilot mode: 50 candidates sourced for you every weekday

[37:34] Why volume sourcing is running out of road

[44:57] The four outreach mistakes killing your response rates

[49:50] The 5-step sequence Steven recommends

[1:04:12] How the top 1% of billers think about their candidate pipeline

Guest bio: Steven Lu is the co-founder and CEO of Pin.com. He previously founded Interseller, which helped place over 40,000 candidates before being acquired by Greenhouse in 2021. He spent two years at Greenhouse before launching PIN in December 2024. Steven is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Connect with Steven: Pin.com - book a free demo or start a free trial

Connect with Mark: Free 30-minute strategy session: recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session Mark on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mwhitby Follow on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach

What does it take to build a search process that has a VP of HR saying they've never seen anything like it?

Darwin Shurig built a $2.5 million medtech recruiting firm with $1.2 million in personal production. Then in one quarter, eight of his nine top clients stopped using external recruiters. Revenue collapsed. His team disappeared. His 17-year marriage ended in the same period.

What he built on the other side changed how he runs every search.

His process replaces the standard job description with a short video interview between the recruiter and the hiring manager. Qualified candidates see the role in the manager's own words before a single formal interview is scheduled. On the hiring side, the manager receives the candidate's personal why on video, written samples, and personality profiling. Both sides walk into the first conversation already informed.

A VP of HR, after seeing it, told Darwin his firm had just paid $97,000 for an executive search and received resumes and scheduling. "We didn't get anything like this."

In this episode, Darwin breaks down the collapse, the lessons, and the process he built from scratch — including two specific things every recruiter can use this week with no software required.

In this episode, you'll discover:

Why eight of nine clients can vanish in one quarter and what it exposes about your business model

The three root causes of underperformance most agency owners never diagnose

Why personal why has to match company why when hiring, or it breaks when things get hard

How a hiking idea became a platform that's changing how retained search is delivered

The hiring manager video that replaces the job description and why candidates respond differently

"How Darwin's process consistently delivers results that clients say they've never experienced before

Two things you can apply this week with whatever tools you already have

Episode highlights:

0:00 Intro

1:41 How Darwin built a $2.5M firm, then lost it

5:43 Eight of nine clients stop overnight

11:16 What the collapse taught him

22:05 The hedgehog lesson: too many projects, not enough oxygen

28:15 Why misaligned values break down when things get hard

36:39 Managing your own business vs. someone else's money

40:48 The expectation failure: "Nobody ever told me."

44:22 The hike that became a platform idea

47:48 Inside Top Talent Accelerant: the hiring manager video

53:59 How the platform is being commercialized

1:05:54 The $97K fee moment

1:11:20 Two things you can use this week

Guest bio: Darwin Shurig is the founder of Top Talent Accelerant, a medical device and medtech executive search firm. He built the firm to $2.5 million in revenue with $1.2 million in personal production before a sector-wide downturn in 2023 disrupted the business. He is a Pinnacle Society member, author of Modern Day Job, an Amazon bestseller published in 2024, and is currently writing a second book on talent management strategy.

Connect with Darwin: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darwin-shurig/ Website: https://www.toptalentaccelerant.com/

Connect with Mark: Free 30-minute strategy session: recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session Mark on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mwhitby Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach