The book · Second edition
A Truly Commercial Introduction to the World of Recruitment
A plain-speaking, practical guide to real-world recruitment. Every chapter is rewritten for the way the job works today, with new material on AI, social selling, video, compliance and candidate experience, and a new chapter on recruiting with AI.
Paperback, hardback and Kindle
Twelve years on from the first edition, a lot has changed. Yet recruitment is still a sales business, people still buy people, and the phone is still the most powerful tool on your desk. The tools have changed. The fundamentals haven’t.
What AI is good at and what it isn’t, how to use it safely and legally, and how to make it make you better, not replaceable.
For hybrid working, video interviews, LinkedIn and social selling, and today’s tools, from your CRM to the AI-written CV.
The essentials, from the Employment Rights Act 2025 and data protection to umbrella company changes and AI in hiring decisions.
Why the way you treat candidates is now a commercial advantage, and a simple standard to work to.
How the industry works, where the money comes from and the rules you work within.
Sourcing, registration, interviewing, CVs and gaining exclusivity.
Why people buy, the phone (still) wins, and building your personal brand.
Getting meetings, rapport and control, and a simple pitch formula.
From the job brief to feedback, counter-offers and a safe first day.
The perfect day, in the office or at home, and using AI without losing the human edge.
Open a chapter to read an extract.
Too many new consultants are still shown a desk (or a laptop and a login) and told to get on with it. Hybrid working has made that worse, not better. It is much harder to learn by osmosis when the best biller in the office is working from home on a Wednesday.
I want everyone coming into recruitment to get the best real-world training and advice available. The kind I received, and have tried to give to everyone I’ve trained since.
Recruitment is a sales business, plain and simple. Our job is to make a profit by placing people into new roles and helping our clients find the best people. Of course we help people along the way, and that matters enormously. But at its core, recruitment is commercial.
AI hasn’t changed that. If anything, it has made it more true. The parts of the job a machine can do are getting cheaper every month. The parts it can’t do (trust, judgement, influence, persuasion) are worth more than ever.
Commercially, it’s very important to keep your best candidates exclusive to you, or at least to be their main recruiter. It stops competitors placing them, especially with your clients.
To gain exclusivity, the candidate needs to trust and respect you, and believe that you have their market covered. Get that right and they won’t feel the need to register anywhere else.
Early in the interview you’ll have asked who else they’re talking to. If the answer is nobody, or nobody yet, a simple “Are you happy to leave it with me for now?” usually does the trick.
If you’ve earned their trust, the answer is usually yes.
Business development is a vital part of what we do as recruiters. Unfortunately, it’s also the part many people have a mental block about. Plenty of others treat it as a chore. It really shouldn’t be that way.
Some people still call BD cold calling. But picking up the phone is only one part of it. Today, BD includes what you post on LinkedIn, the events you go to, the market insight you share, the way you follow up and the reputation your candidates give you. All of it adds up.
People buy things, especially expensive things, because they perceive value. Think about why someone would pay thousands of pounds for a Rolex when a Casio, or the phone in their pocket, would tell the time just as well.
The key to any sale is the buyer’s motivation to buy.
In the first edition, I called this chapter “Telephone Techniques”. The techniques haven’t changed. What has changed is that the phone now sits alongside email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and video. And it’s easier than ever to hide behind all of them.
Please don’t.
So much of what should be done on the phone is now done by email, LinkedIn message or text. Those channels are great for some things. But you cannot build a relationship by typing.
It’s also much harder to ignore someone you’re speaking with. You can’t just delete them!
This chapter didn’t exist in the first edition. In 2014, it would have been science fiction.
Used well, AI can take a huge amount of low-value work off your desk: searching and matching, first drafts, research before a meeting, admin and spotting patterns in your numbers. The point isn’t the technology itself. It’s the time it gives back, and what the best recruiters do with it.
AI can’t build trust with a nervous candidate, read the hesitation in a hiring manager’s voice, persuade a passive candidate to take a call about a job they didn’t know they wanted, or talk someone through a counter-offer. It can’t take responsibility for a decision. And it can’t care.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
“James’s guidance has resulted in us winning more profitable business more often. A highly personable, commercially astute and passionate professional. I cannot recommend James highly enough.”
“James is one of the most accomplished recruiters I have come across. He delivers and you’ll enjoy the experience too.”
“I recommend James on so many levels: insightful, intelligent, entertaining and relevant. His training was so enjoyable and really relevant to the tasks that I am doing. 10/10.”
“A great read, very accurate insight into today’s recruitment industry.”
“Relevant, informative and up to date.”
Choose the format that suits you. All three are available from Amazon.
Delivered to your door. Ideal for reading, marking up and keeping on the desk.
A lasting edition for your shelf, or a gift for someone starting out in recruitment.
About the author
James is a recruitment trainer, coach and author who has spent his whole career helping people in recruitment sell better, build stronger client relationships and grow their businesses.
He qualified as a Chartered Accountant before discovering recruitment, and spent nearly twelve years with a multinational recruitment group, building and running a network of regional and London offices and leading training across its finance and legal businesses. He then founded and led his own recruitment business.
Through Recruiting to Win® he has trained more than 200 recruitment agencies and in-house teams across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and North America.
“The best recruiters weren’t born with some special talent. They were trained, coached and mentored. And anyone can join them.”
The book covers the foundations. Recruiting to Win® training turns them into everyday habits on the desk, tailored to your market and your team.