Read time: 2 minutes

Welcome to The Solo Recruiter (TSR)! This is a weekly newsletter dedicated to providing actionable insights for busy recruiters who want to perform better and earn more. Not a little bit more, but more like 3X more at least.

Here’s what on the menu today:

Hiring Budget: Accept or Challenge?

When your client gives you their hiring budget, what’s your first reaction?

Most recruiters I know accept it for fear of upsetting their client. This unfortunately seals their fate.

Why do I say that?

As a recruiter, one of your most value-add is to provide market insights to your client. If the hiring budget is too low, and mostly it is, you got to make a note of it and educate your client.

Otherwise, you can keep searching for that purple unicorn and it will never come.

Let’s talk about hiring budget. Why is the budget often so low? We break it down.

The hiring budget is usually based on an existing employee who holds a similar role and yearly salary increments are at best 3-5% for most companies. Thus, it is not surprising why HR and hiring managers are not in tune with the market rate because they only focus internally. Of course, every company is trying to manage cost down but in hiring the right talent, it’s always penny wise, pound foolish.

Don’t make this mistake. There is no value in hiring affordable candidates who cannot do the job. In less than 6 months, either they leave or you make them. Either way, it is a sunk cost and you have to fork out more to replace the outgoing person.

That is why I never accept the original hiring budget as final. I will provide insights based on market research and suggest a reasonable budget to the client.

This step is highly valuable to your client and your own reputation as an expert in the recruitment industry. It also helps you to identify who your best clients are and work with them more. They are your 20% (Read about Pareto Principle) clients you want to focus on.

Trying to find a candidate with an unreasonable budget leads you to nowhere. The client concludes you can’t find the right candidate and did not understand the underlying reason if you keep quiet on it initially because you don’t want to antagonize them.

By all means, let your client know what’s realistic out there and help them prepare a suitable budget. That’s your work, that’s your value.

Joo Kwang
​Author of Solopreneur’s Guide to Recruitment Business

​About this newsletter: You are receiving this email because you subscribed to my weekly TSR (The Solo Recruiter) newsletter. Every week, I share 1 actionable insight for busy recruiters, that you can implement for immediate results. And if you are too busy, you can unsubscribe using the link below.