Reverse Recruiting

 Reverse Recruiting

**Please note that I am not an advocate of this method but it is part of the marketplace so I want to make job seekers away of the model, which is the opposite of the traditional model of retained / contingency recruiting**

Through good economic times and bad, recruiters have usually operated the other way around: Companies pay them to find talent for tough-to-fill positions. Now, though, job seekers are hiring a new crop of what are called reverse recruiters to help them crack a competitive market.

Jane Doe, 36 years old, signed up for reverse-recruiting service Refer last year after receiving an email pitch from the company. Refer’s AI agent connected her with an executive at Golden, a volunteer-management company, which was looking for a platform engineer and data scientist. Doe got the offer after several interviews. She then paid Refer 20% of his first month’s pay once it landed in his bank account.

It was “refreshing,” she said, not to be lost in a sea of candidates sorted by an applicant-tracking system (ATS).

The reverse-recruiting model is another sign of the mounting challenges for white-collar job seekers. For the first time since the pandemic, there were more unemployed people than open roles as of late 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average job search is now approaching about six months, according to December federal data.

Reverse-recruiter models vary, but many require job seekers to pay them part of their salary once they accept a job. Others charge a set rate to submit applications on a candidate’s behalf. Such services typically go beyond career coaching or résumé reviews, and sometimes involve the recruiter applying on behalf of the candidate.

Source: WSJ.com