Job seekers are turning to 'reverse recruiting' in a tough market

The professional recruiting landscape is undergoing a major shift, with increasingly desperate white-collar job seekers turning to paid recruiters to secure employment.

In this “reverse recruiting” model, candidates are signing up for services that apply for positions on their behalf, charge fees, and even take a percentage of their salary once a job is secured. That's opposed to the traditional recruiting dynamic in which companies hire firms to fill open positions.

Some social media pros say that when well-qualified professionals feel compelled to spend money just to be seen by a hiring manager, it signals that something deeper is breaking down in U.S. hiring systems.

“The rise of reverse recruiting isn’t happening in a vacuum,” said Stephanie Alston, president at the executive recruitment firm BGG Enterprises. “It’s really a response to just how tumultuous the labor market is even for highly qualified job seekers.”

Reverse recruiting defined

Reverse recruiting flips the traditional model for recruiters and job hunters.

“In traditional recruiting, the company pays the recruiter to find talent,” Alston said. “In reverse recruiting, the candidate pays someone to market them to employers.”

Fees vary widely, with some corporate staffers and executives paying flat rates of between $2,000–$10,000-plus in monthly retainers, Alston noted. Some take 10–20% of the career professional’s first-year salary.

“Functionally, reverse recruiters and executive recruiters do similar sourcing and positioning work,” Alson added. “The only real difference is who pays for it.”

Steven Lowell, a career coach and senior reverse recruiter at Find My Profession, has been in the reverse recruiting market since 2016. “Every reverse recruiting service is different,” he said. “It’s actually a difficult business model to figure out because job seekers are contracting help to generate interviews, and reverse recruiters don’t place anyone."

Lowell spends his workday job searching for and applying to roles, teaching others how to network online, checking in with clients, and networking to help them. “Just this afternoon, I helped a person with interview prep and another with a salary negotiation,” he said. 

At Find My Profession, Lowell said the business model centers on authenticity — reverse recruiters like him are former recruiters, not recruiters doing a side hustle.

“We offer monthly subscriptions, no commission, and no hidden fees,” he said. “Transparency is mandatory.”

He also noted that clients are not paying for recruiter access. “They are paying for help from people who know just how messed up the hiring tech space is,” Lowell said. “Imagine a former recruiter stops helping a company and starts helping five to ten people seeking work.”

Lowell said his firm is necessary because the hiring market is a data-mining nightmare, with 75,000 job boards and new hiring tools coming out every day. “But people only job search five to seven times in a career,” he said. “The minute someone goes unemployed, they do what anyone does: They look online for answers, only to be met by blogs about ATS systems, influencers spewing popular rhetoric, and new tech making huge promises.”

AI domination changes the script for job seekers

Technology, especially artificial intelligence, has forced the hands of career professionals in ways even professional recruiters may not have seen coming.

“Using AI as the initial screening tool, approximately 75% of applicants get eliminated from consideration before a human ever sees their application,” said Lacey Kaelani, CEO of Metaintro, a job search engine platform that runs on real-time public data. “Our data indicates that, on average, a white-collar worker submits over 100 applications to receive one offer of employment."

That’s a problem for professionals seeking work, and it’s an opportunity for reverse recruitment specialists, mostly because the traditional method of job searching isn’t working for job candidates anymore.

“People aren’t paying for recruiters to help them find jobs just because they lack the qualifications needed to apply,” Kaelani said. “They’re paying because they can’t navigate the extremely complicated process of job-searching without help.”

The sustainability of reverse recruiting also depends on employers' decisions going forward. “As companies continue to automate their hiring processes and post jobs they do not intend to fill, reverse recruiting will only continue to grow,” Kaelani added.

There’s no shortage of risk with reverse recruiting

Experts say it’s buyer beware for employment candidates farming out the grunt work that, over the past few decades, has been handled by the job hunter

“Reverse recruiting is a reflection of a hiring marketplace that has become more and more unclear and, in many ways, unfair to employees,” said Eric Kingsley, a partner at Los Angeles-based Kingsley Szamet Employment Lawyers.

As a seasoned lawyer representing employees in discrimination and retaliation claims, Kingsley believes that reverse recruiting is a major cause for concern.

“If qualified professionals are being forced into a marketplace where they must pay simply to be 'seen' by hiring managers or be able to navigate hiring systems that increasingly utilize automated systems for initial screening, that's a marketplace that seems unfair and lacking in transparency,” he noted.

Kingsley said it’s already apparent hiring systems that utilize automated systems and informal networks are unfair to older workers, women, and minorities. “Now, will reverse recruiting exacerbate that gap and actually provide advantages for those with the means to pay?” he wondered.

Consequently, anyone who works with a reverse recruiter must be extremely careful.

“The contract must be reviewed, the scope of the work must be understood, and the recruiter must not be misrepresenting qualifications or applying for positions without the complete consent of the candidate,” Kinglsey said.

Reverse recruiting clients should be wary of percentage-based contracts that extend beyond the initial recruitment process into the actual job. “These could cause problems once the candidate is employed,” he added.

Take these action steps if you work with a reverse recruiter

If you're eagerly looking for work, go ahead and give the process a shot. Just make sure to follow these steps as you move forward.

Do your research first

Talk to the people behind the computer screens and see that they’re real people. “See what they know and ask tough questions,”  Lowell said. “Ask how they will specifically help you.”

Know that all reverse recruiter services aren’t the same

Reverse recruiters are much like lawyers, teachers, chefs, and other consumer service providers. “They may have their 'idea' of what the job requires, but not all of them are the same,” Lowell said.

Know your rights, and where to go to affirm those rights

While there’s no single federal ban on candidate-paid job search services in the U.S., regulators still draw lines around deception and misrepresentation.

"The Federal Trade Commission can act where services overstate employer access, inflate outcomes, or obscure material terms,” said Alex Odwell, co-founder at Referment, a fintech-based recruiting firm in London, U.K. “Many states regulate employment agencies through licensing and consumer protection laws. The legal framing matters less than the underlying principle: vulnerable jobseekers shouldn’t be misled about what they’re actually buying.”

Take the Hollywood approach with reverse recruiting

Reverse recruiting is no different than someone in Hollywood having an agent.

“They market you, handle the mess, and get paid when you land the role,” said Trent Cotton, head of talent acquisition at iCIMS, a talent acquisition technology services provider.

The business model approach itself is “an ingenious way” to solve two problems at once, Cotton noted. “It helps candidates truly stand out by leveraging the relationships recruiters have inside companies, while also giving recruiters who are struggling to secure job orders a way to make ends meet.”