The Recruiter Sprint: What's a good recruiter actually worth?

What's a good recruiter actually worth?

It's one of the questions owners ask me most: what should I actually be paying my consultants?

Most answer it with gut feel, what they paid the last person, and whatever a candidate says they're on elsewhere. Recruiters aren't much better off. Plenty walk into a salary review with no real number at all.

Get it wrong either way and it costs you. Underpay and your best people take a better offer down the road. Overpay without the billings to match and your margins wear it.

So we put together the Australian Recruitment Agency Salary Guide 2026. It compares base salaries for Consultants, Senior Consultants and Team Leaders by sector, state, experience and desk type, with billings alongside. A few things stood out.

Source: Australian Recruitment Agency Salary Guide 2026, 2,000+ recruiters surveyed in 2026.

Three things that stood out

1. The step into leadership is worth $39,000. Team Leaders average $131,000 base, against $92,000 for Consultants. If your team can't see a clear path into leadership with you, they'll find one somewhere else.
2. Billings climb far faster than pay. Top-quartile billers bring in around four times what the bottom quartile does each quarter. Their base is only 26% higher. Commission wasn't surveyed, so this isn't the full package, but your top billers will have noticed the gap.
3. Temp desks bill the most and get paid the least. Temp and contract Consultants report the strongest quarterly billings of any desk type, yet average $82,000 base against $98,000 on perm. If you run a temp desk, that's a retention conversation worth having before someone else has it with them.

Inside the guide

• Average base salary and middle 50% ranges for Consultants, Senior Consultants and Team Leaders
• How pay grows across four experience bands
• The highest and lowest paying sectors, by role
• Salaries by state: VIC, NSW, QLD, SA and WA
• Perm, dual and temp desks compared, with billings
• Billings against base salary, by quartile
• Practical next steps for owners and recruiters

BD takes time. Calls still work.

Recently I came across an old LinkedIn thread. A prospect I'd met with came back a year later wanting to work with me. By then I had a six-month waitlist for new clients, thanks to two solid years of consistent BD and a fully retained book.

That's how BD works. What you do now might not pay off for six months. Maybe a year, maybe three. You'll get quick wins along the way, but the consultants who bill consistently are the ones who do BD consistently.

I also keep hearing that no one picks up the phone anymore. Then I look at Janette's numbers from one week:

Calls work. Most of us just aren't making enough of them.

Join us for a free half-day BD session.

I'm running a free half-day BD session for senior recruiters, all on Teams. It's a small group with everyone at the same level, so no one's carrying anyone.

1. 9:30am to 12:30pm · On the phones. A quick briefing to get set up and fired up, then three hours of straight calling.
2. 12:30pm · Lunch. You'll have earned it.
3. 1:00pm · Debrief (30 min). What worked, what didn't.

Thursday 19 November. All times Sydney time.

It's free, but it's not for everyone. To get a spot, you'll need to:

• Be a senior, experienced recruiter
• Do a bit of prep before the day
• Share in the briefing and debrief, not just sit there
• Commit to the full three hours of calls, no ducking out

There are only 10 spots for this one, so take your time filling in the application. The detail you give us is what we'll use to pick who's in.

If you register and don't secure a spot this time around, we'll keep you posted for future dates. Once you've registered, you'll hear from us by Thursday 12 November to let you know if you've secured a spot.

What 300 agency websites have in common.

Mark, our Head of Marketing, has been working on websites for a number of our clients. In the last few weeks he's looked at over 300 recruitment agency websites, and a few things keep coming up.

1. The homepage doesn't say who you help. A stock photo of a handshake and a line like "connecting talent with opportunity". Swap the logo for another agency's and nobody would notice. Often there's no mention of the sectors or people the agency recruits for.
2. It's written about the agency, not the client. Lots of "we're passionate" and "we pride ourselves". Not much on what a client actually gets, or why they should pick up the phone.
3. There's no proof. No numbers, no named clients, no real testimonials. Or the testimonials are from 2019.
4. It's hard to know what to do next. Submit a vacancy? Upload a CV? Call someone? When there are six buttons, people usually click none.
5. It falls apart on mobile. Which is a problem, because that's where most candidates are looking.

It might be worth a quick look at your own website this week.

If you'd like a hand, Mark and the team now take on design work for agencies, from websites to documents and templates.