Hello everyone, and welcome to this podcast episode! I'm Robin Choy, CEO of HireSweet (a Recruiting CRM that helps Talent Acquisition automate their outreach and nurture past candidates). Each week, I address various recruiting issues, such as recruiting outreach, interviewing, employer branding, and career management. My goal is to provide helpful insights to anyone interested in recruitment, whether you're an in-house recruiter, agency recruiter, freelancer, or hiring manager!
How to become a fractional recruiter, Natalie Stones.
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I'm talking to more and more recruiters who are going freelance (in different ways), because the full-time internal/agency recruiter job no longer suits them. So I thought I would dedicate an episode on how to become a freelance recruiter (60 episodes, and still never talked about this topic!).
I decided to make this episode with Natalie Stones. After 20 years as an agency recruiter and then as an internal recruiter (including Head Of Talent Acquisition position), she was tired of the 40 hours work week for the same employer. So Natalie became freelance. More precisely, she became a part-time recruiter (aka “fractional” recruiter) for several brands. It means she works for 4 different companies, 10 hours a week for each.
Here’s Natalie’s process to go fractional :
1/ Understanding what “fractional” means
Fractional recruitment is opposed to RPO and project-driven freelancing, where the mission is: '“I need you to hire those 3 tech roles, and then we’re done”. Conversely, a fractional recruiter seeks long-term collaboration with the company (6+ months). The good news is that it suits many companies that would like to have a Head of TA to change their ATS, set up better hiring processes within the teams, and help on 3-5 critical hires a year. But they don’t need to hire a full-time TA for that missions. So they hire a “fractional Head of TA”, who will work 10 hours a week for them. Natalie advises working all day for one client rather than doing per-hours contracts because that’s easier to manage.
2/ Finding clients
There are 2 straightforward ways to find clients at the beginning:
1/ Digging into your network
2/ Doing cold outreach
Hopefully, you’ll find your first clients within your network. Then, if you’re good at your job, referrals will bring you new clients. Eventually, you’ll need to do cold outreach. Cold email and cold DM on LinkedIn are still efficient in 2023.
Natalie also posts on LinkedIn, but she doesn’t do it to generate leads, but rather to build authority. Natalie and I don’t advise you to create content at first to generate leads because it’s very hard and time-consuming, and it won’t generate inbound leads for several months. Start with your network and cold outreach, and eventually post on LinkedIn, not the other way around.
It’s the biggest downside of becoming a part-time recruiter: you've to do sales and business development. You have to be comfortable getting out there. If you don't like Sales, forget it.
3/ Having a clear offer
According to Natalie, this is the number 1 mistake fractional recruiters make: not having a clear offer. It’s often :
Too broad: “I help companies hire”. Which companies? Hire what type of candidates?
Too fluffy: “I help companies look at recruitment from a different angle and become magnets for candidates.” We don’t get it. It’s too fluffy.
When prospects don't understand your offer or have doubts about it, they churn every time. If you're having trouble formulating your offer, I recommend this book : $100M Offers.
4/ Price yourself smartly
Fractional Recruiters underprice themselves, according to Natalie. Natalie usually charges between 5000$ and 8000$ per month for 10 hours a week. The best way to estimate your target salary as a fractional recruiter is to take your usual yearly salary and add a 30% buffer to cover taxes and expenses of the fractional way of working.
As a fractional recruiter, Natalie she no really makes more money than a full-time Head of TA. But she earned flexibility, and more security because she works for several clients (and so she can't be laid off for a sole employer). She’s also evolving much quicker because she works on several projects and missions, and her network expands much quicker.
Bonus: here are the 3 communities Natalie mentioned during the episode :
Fractionals United (a Slack group for fractional people)
Fractional Connections (a Slack community for fractional people)
Talent Collective (An invite-only community dedicated to the development, connection, and advancement of Bay Area women in talent acquisition.)
Listen to the episode to find out more!
Have a nice week, and see you soon,
CEO of HireSweet
PS: If you enjoy the episodes, don’t hesitate to leave the podcast a five-star review in your favorite app of choice. It helps me a lot!
Did you enjoy the episode? Feel free to check out the 3 most downloaded episodes:
37. Build a thriving & strategic sourcing team, with Garrett Lewis, tech sourcing lead at Grammarly.
If you find this podcast helpful, you'll be interested in what we do at HireSweet.
👉 HireSweet CRM helps Talent Acquisition teams get more efficient at sourcing candidates. Automate your sourcing tasks on Linkedin and search for former candidates to contact again in your ATS.
Try it for free here!
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