Agency vs. Internal vs. Fractional: Kaylee Estes on Revenue, Relationships, and Reinventing Recruiting for 2025

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast, what spurred you to finally leave that agency?

Kaylee Estes [00:00:06]:
My compensation, you know, was so tied to this really pivotal life decision of somebody else that was very stressful, especially with like a baby at home. And I was just looking for more stability around compensation. I think removing as much of the transactional feel as possible is really important because that builds trust.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:28]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership and placements. This episode is sponsored by the Agency Blueprint, the go to coaching program for recruiters who want to scale without the chaos. If you're making placements but your revenue is inconsistent, your client pipeline is unpredictable, or you're still in the delivery trenches every day, this is how you fix that. You'll get the exact blueprint used by top recruitment agencies to consistently land clients, improve delivery and scale with automation, AI and a remote team. James Blackwell, the founder of the agency Blueprint, built a seven figure recruitment agency in the UK and now mentors recruiters and agency owners around the world. His team works closely with a select group of driven individuals ready to scale. Head to ww.theagencyblueprint.com to book your free recruiter strategy call and find out if it's the right fit for you.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:32]:
Again, that's the agencyblueprint.com I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast because, you know, there's such gap between internal recruiters and agency recruiters. And I think a lot of times agency recruiters just don't know what an internal recruiter is dealing with. You know, they're focused on making the placement, they're focused on how can we get a placement as fast as possible. But if we sometimes stop, slow down and figure out what the internal recruiter actually needs, there's a partnership there that can be so beneficial that could produce hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars. You can become that, go to agency for that recruiter. And it might take slowing down and figuring out what they actually need. And that's why I'm so excited to have Kaylee on the podcast because she was an agency recruiter, she was internal TA leader and now owns her own firm. So she has seen it all.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:25]:
But the most important thing that we want to talk about is she knows exactly what has actually worked when it comes to the pitches, when it works, to finding that partner. And she's going to Tell all today. So, welcome to the podcast.

Kaylee Estes [00:02:37]:
Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Benjamin. I love the podcast.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:41]:
So, real quick, 30 seconds, a little bit about your business right now.

Kaylee Estes [00:02:45]:
Yeah, so I own a company called Estes Group. We're headquartered out of Atlanta, and we partner with technology startups. That's kind of our sweet spot. So really seed to Series C, and we help them by offering embedded and fractional recruiting. We also do some contingent work, but we focus mainly on engineering and go to market hiring. And our goal is to work as closely with the companies as we can. So oftentimes that means jumping in and being part of their internal team.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:16]:
That's awesome. And we'll kind of talk about that business model a little later on. But before you even get there, like, how did you even end up in this wonderful, crazy world of recruiting?

Kaylee Estes [00:03:24]:
Well, I'm not going to say the same thing that everybody says where they fell into it. I actually have kind of a funny story of how I got my first recruiting job. So my first job out of college was not recruiting. I was actually an executive assistant to a CEO of a construction company. It was a wild time. Like, think Devil Wears Prada esque. And one thing, yeah, in construction, it was wild. It was a really great first job because it was really hard.

Kaylee Estes [00:03:51]:
And, you know, you got a lot of grit out of it. I experienced a lot of, like, really weird things that first year. But one thing that I had to do for the CEO was find leads that were, like, multifamily, you know, companies maybe bringing business to Atlanta that we could go after. And I would literally highlight the newspaper once a week of all of the leads coming into Atlanta. And the AJC here in Atlanta does a Best Places to Work article every year. And there is a staffing firm on there that I recognize that was, like, pretty highly ranked. And I had a friend there, and I reached out and was like, hey, tell me everything about your company and are you hiring? And I got an interview. And, yeah, the rest is history.

Kaylee Estes [00:04:31]:
I, like, really hit it off with the owners, and I became a technical recruiter.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:35]:
And.

Kaylee Estes [00:04:35]:
And that's kind of how I ended up in recruiting.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:38]:
So you got tired of circling things in the newspaper, right?

Kaylee Estes [00:04:41]:
You have a lot to unpack there. But, yes, it was. It was a really crazy first job. I literally would circle and highlight the newspaper for leads once a week. And that is how I got my first recruiting job, by seeing my previous company listed.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:57]:
So that is crazy. Okay, so, like, you know, your first recruiting job jumped in the agency world or is listed as the best place to work. How was that first year?

Kaylee Estes [00:05:05]:
Oh, it was so fun. I mean, I think any recruiter starting out should jump into like a medium sized agency. It was really, really fun, really really hard. You grind it out just like everybody else. But it's a great way to like make friends right out of school. You're working with a lot of people and kind of like that same phase of life. And then I'm a really competitive person. So I think like the world of recruiting, especially agency recruiting, was naturally just a really good fit for me because I really wanted to win, really wanted to get placements and yeah, I did really well and I was there for almost five years.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:39]:
Were you a college athlete too?

Kaylee Estes [00:05:41]:
Yeah, yeah, I ran for a year at Auburn.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:44]:
Nice. Okay. I was like super competitive.

Kaylee Estes [00:05:46]:
Super competitive.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:47]:
I feel like they like, they like recruiting agencies just like look for college athletes.

Kaylee Estes [00:05:51]:
Yeah, I know there's definitely like a profile when they're going to all of their, you know, college recruiting events and things like that. But I think just being competitive and I also really liked the idea of helping people and I felt like helping people find a new job would be like, pretty fulfilling. A lot more fulfilling than being an ea. And yeah, I learned I was a technical recruiter, so I learned everything about technical recruiting. And you know, like that first year you're talking to like 50 people a day. I mean, you learn so much so fast. And yeah, if you're at the right agency, you have a lot of fun with it too. So.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:25]:
And what spurred you to finally leave that agency?

Kaylee Estes [00:06:29]:
Yeah, so I was there for almost five years, so it was definitely a journey. I started out as an entry level recruiter. I grew to a recruiting manager where I was still managing a desk as well. And I had my second child and I don't know, I think I had always had this idea that like internal recruiting was like easier than agency recruiting. I think when you start out in agency they say that a lot. But my compensation, you know, was so tied to this really pivotal life decision of somebody else. That was very stressful, especially with like a baby at home. And I was just looking for more stability around compensation.

Kaylee Estes [00:07:04]:
That was actually like the first reason I started looking. And then one of our clients was a startup company and they hiring their first ever recruiting manager to come in and like build out their entire recruiting program. And that job just seemed so exciting to where I applied. And I somehow got that job, even though, I mean, I was mostly qualified for it. But I Had zero in house recruiting experience. So I thought jumping into a tech startup would be really fun. You know, they talk about the culture and, and all of the cool perks and things like that. And then the idea of building something from the ground up also sounded really exciting.

Kaylee Estes [00:07:39]:
So. So that's why I made the jump. It's not easier, by the way. It is very hard.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:44]:
Well, explain that like for people listening, like, explain that like that Harder and the difference of the harder.

Kaylee Estes [00:07:49]:
Yeah, well, I think so. I started my recruiting career in 2013, so I think the evolution of an internal recruiter, you know, I think it's evolved over the past few years. And originally I always had this vision that like an in house recruiter was just like another HR partner that they didn't know how to source. They, you know, I just had this like vision that that's why they partnered with external firms is that they couldn't go find the people that they needed. But jumping in, what I realized was the impact that every hire makes at a company is so huge that an internal recruiter is balancing that with also being able to hire quickly, having the sense that every person I bring in has to be good, but I'm also going to have to work with them. So. So that team fit really matters. And yeah, I mean, startup life is just crazy.

Kaylee Estes [00:08:39]:
There's a million moving parts, things pivot on a dime. Hiring is often one of those things that changes really, really quickly, like literally every day. And so jumping in, I had to kind of shed a lot of like the external agency mentality that I had and had to adjust to. Okay, every hire is kind of make or break and we have to be really selective, but we also have to move fast and we have to build process and all of that. So that's where the job was harder, was just thinking beyond just finding a resume.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:10]:
And like, for those that are listening, like, what kind of processes did you have to build out?

Kaylee Estes [00:09:15]:
Yeah, yeah, all of them. So my first startup had just been acquired by a private equity firm. So they had around like 60 employees when I started. And they were implementing an ATS so they had no applicant tracking system or it was like relatively new right when I was starting. So they also had to implement the hiring practice of the private equity firm. So the private equity firm would acquire companies, come in and be like, this is how you're going to hire. And it had like interview steps that we had to implement. We had to build scorecards around those.

Kaylee Estes [00:09:50]:
We had to build scorecards for jobs. We had to update our Job descriptions. We had to think through salary bands. We had to think through, like, internal mobility, like, how do we interview internal versus external candidates? And then we also had, like, assessments and things like that. So we basically built it from the ground up over the course of the next two years to where by the time I left, we had a pretty efficient hiring engine. We could hire quickly. We knew we were hiring the right people and things like that. But it's a lot of work that you just don't even think about.

Kaylee Estes [00:10:19]:
And you still have to go find people as well as we know, which takes a lot of time.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:23]:
What spurred you to actually go from making, you know, that internal TA lead?

Kaylee Estes [00:10:29]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:30]:
To actually starting your own organization.

Kaylee Estes [00:10:32]:
Yeah. So I ended up at another startup. So my first startup was a really big success. I was there for about two years, and then I went to another startup in Atlanta and basically did the same thing again with, I would say, even less structure. And we scaled that company from less than a hundred to over 500. We expanded internationally, and I was leading a recruiting team of about eight people. And it was, you know, 2023. I won't say the world was ending, so we already went through that in Covid, but it was, you know, the tech world was kind of like in this weird phase where, like, companies weren't profitable and they had to do massive layoffs and internal TA teams got hit really hard.

Kaylee Estes [00:11:11]:
And while I was there, I'd had this idea what would happen after this company, IPOs. Like, I was convinced we were going to IPO, as is everybody in the tech startup world. What would I do after that? And the idea was I would create a recruiting agency, but we would know what the internal recruiters want and we'd be able to work with them better. And we would just remove all the crap in between and basically just be a better agency because of our internal experience. So in January 2023, my previous company did, like, almost a 30% reduction in force. And so it was just a really good time to, like, give it a try. My husband was really supportive, and he was like, when else are you gonna do this? Like, go out, give it a shot. Let's see if it works.

Kaylee Estes [00:11:57]:
You have 12 months, and it worked really well. So here we are.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:01]:
So before we start focusing on exactly, like, what you did in those early days, I wanna go back to the two startups that you worked at. And did you guys partner with recruiting agencies there?

Kaylee Estes [00:12:10]:
Yeah. Yeah, we did. For the first firm that I was at, we partnered with two search firms. We had A very small recruiting team. So we got to the point where our internal team was at capacity. Like, we had to take certain roles to the market. And then the second startup, we only really worked with an agency for one of the years that I was there, and it was because we were building a new product that we had to take to market. And literally a VP of engineering came to me and was like, hey, we need to hire 10 people in, like, the next 10 days.

Kaylee Estes [00:12:43]:
They need to start in a month and a half, which feels impossible. And in a lot of ways it kind of was. So we had to partner with an agency in that moment. So we had a few that we would call when we were busy. We also had a time period where we had to hire a few contractors. And so partnering with an agency is really the only way to do that.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:01]:
I hate to say this, like, how did they get in the door? It was the perfect email. Was it a cold call? Was it a LinkedIn post?

Kaylee Estes [00:13:09]:
Yeah, so. Well, it was. The agency that I worked with for, worked out for almost five years. So it was people that we knew and we trusted, but we had a few others. So there were a few other agency relationships that already existed when I started. And then we did have one that we hired a few contractors through. And I think they didn't come through me, but they came through a head of people. And I think they sent a really good email that basically explained that they're able to hire contractors.

Kaylee Estes [00:13:37]:
They can hire contractors quickly. They also did full time as well. And then on our first call, you know, they did a good job of building credibility that they knew what they were talking about. So we needed to hire quality assurance contractors. They had people that they could, you know, call quickly, so it made sense to give them a shot. But it is hard to get through. I was on the receiving end of a lot of bad emails, a lot of cold calls. The cold calls kind of started to drop.

Kaylee Estes [00:14:04]:
I don't know how many people are actually doing that anymore. But, yeah, it is hard to get through and get noticed because you're getting pinged every single day as a head of TA by every agency in your geography. You know, about how many times were.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:18]:
You getting pinged a week on average?

Kaylee Estes [00:14:19]:
I was getting a message every single day.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:22]:
At least one.

Kaylee Estes [00:14:23]:
At least one, yeah. And everybody on my team and we saw all of the worst of the approaches. You know, a lot of NPC campaigns where it's like, hey, I know this candidate. He'd be great at your company. And then we would talk to the candidate. They had no idea who we were. You know, like, maybe we would reply to an NPC campaign, but then we hated them because the candidate never knew that they were being sent to our company. They were in no way vetted.

Kaylee Estes [00:14:51]:
Like, it was just bad, you know, I'm sure there's a much better way to do that.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:55]:
Awesome. So let's jump back into your story. Like, January 2023, you launched. Yeah, you launched. What next?

Kaylee Estes [00:15:01]:
Right, like, you launch a company, what do you do? So we got our first client in March of 2023. So it was through a relationship that I had worked with her before. She was the head of people at another startup. They had an agency that they were using that they fired. And I called her and let her know, hey, I'm going out on my own. What would it take to get a shot to work with you guys? And she's like, it's not going to take a lot because I hate our contingent firm and we need somebody that we can trust. So she immediately, like, pushed our contract through. She was a really great internal champion of us.

Kaylee Estes [00:15:36]:
And then we did our first placement in less than a month with them. And then they also worked with a fractional recruiter. So that was kind of like my first window into, like, what is fractional recruiting? What does embedded recruiting look like? But really, like, we got that job because the contingent firm that they had was applying a ton of pressure to the client, and they were doing all the things that you hear about that make people not like external firms, you know, so applying a lot of pressure, increasing the salary in the last minute, Things like that weren't really sitting well with them.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:10]:
Oh, man. That took me back to a story when I was, like, internal, like, working with a team. I just started at a new place, and then the staffing agency actually, like, the first week threatened to my job.

Kaylee Estes [00:16:20]:
Oh, my gosh. What do you mean?

Benjamin Mena [00:16:22]:
Like, what did they actually, like, just like, you need to push these people through. Like, you know, for. We're in charge. Like, I was like, wait, wait, I'm like, I'm kind of in charge. Like, wait, say that again. But they're like, yeah, like, we'll get you fired. So they said that. So unfortunately, they exited about 600k of business the next week.

Kaylee Estes [00:16:40]:
Yeah, you hear these things. I actually had. This is a crazy story. I had a client who had an agency that was trying to get in with them, and they couldn't get in with them, and they put a calendar invitation for an interview with an actual candidate. Cold. On a hiring manager's calendar for a job that they had posted, they scheduled an interview that they never had permission to work on or schedule. They just sent the calendar invite with a zoom link and this poor candidate attached to it that had no idea that the hiring manager had no idea who he was. He was like, what is this? On my calendar, you hear these things.

Kaylee Estes [00:17:16]:
You're like, how is this a business tactic?

Benjamin Mena [00:17:19]:
It's one of those things. I'm like, is it working for somebody?

Kaylee Estes [00:17:22]:
I don't know. I would love to know when that works, but maybe it works one time out of the thousand times they try it and then they just keep with it. I don't know.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:33]:
Anyways, so back to focusing on you. Back to focusing on the story. So you just learned about fractional, like, as you were supporting this.

Kaylee Estes [00:17:39]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:40]:
And for those that are listening, like, you've done a lot of contingent work. What is the difference between embedded fractional and rpo?

Kaylee Estes [00:17:47]:
Yeah, I think my understanding of rpo, I feel like RPO is kind of like this outdated term. Maybe it's not, but for me, it always kind of felt that way. Where my vision of an RPO is where a company truly outsources their entire talent function to a third. What we're doing through our fractional and embedded model is we're only taking a portion of the work and we're partnering with their internal team. So we're not a fully outsourced solution. We're there during a really busy hiring season, or maybe they have lower recruiter capacity for some reason or another, and we're there to help kind of fill that gap for them until they get it more under control and they don't need us anymore. So they're not fully outsourcing everything to us. It's more like we're joining them and working within their systems, their processes, and we're just an extension of their team for a period of time.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:43]:
You found out about fractional because there's a fractional recruiter supporting the team. Like, yeah. When did you start looking at adding that as part of your book of business?

Kaylee Estes [00:18:50]:
Yeah. So my original idea for my company was actually to be a talent strategy firm. I had this big idea of, like, I'll, you know, help people hire better, just from what I know. But then I'll also advise startups on how to build out their hiring process and all of the things. And what I realized was it is great to talk about that stuff, and it's maybe a good marketing tactic, but when you start meeting with companies, they end up just wanting you to help them hire. And so I kind of liked the idea of fractional and embedded being a way to serve that internal recruiter role as an agency partner. I love the process of like being an internal recruiter, building out process, working in a team like that. And so it kind of like filled that, you know, personal desire that I had and then it ended up being really effective because you're in their systems, you know their company better than anybody else because you're working in the company.

Kaylee Estes [00:19:47]:
So it ended up just being a good kind of pivot into like the strengths of what we had from the internal experience. And then a lot of the clients we were talking with really needed that help because they're very hesitant to hire in house recruiters over the last two years. So it was a great way for them to increase their capacity without adding headcount to their talent team.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:07]:
So when you are talking with these clients, and especially last year because of, you know, before we hit record, you were talking about the percentage wise of your business doing a lot of stuff like, yeah, do you have like both offers at the table, like the contingent and the embedded? Like, is it all under one offer? Like one offer or one meeting? Or is it just like, how do you sell that?

Kaylee Estes [00:20:28]:
Yeah, that's a great question. And honestly, I will not claim to be like an expert seller. Like the area of coaching that I dive into is selling because that's not. I never served the role of an AE at my agency. So everything that I'm doing I've learned in the past two years. That is tricky. I think what I do is whenever I'm meeting with a new client, I am not trying to sell them, I'm not trying to push anything on them. I'm trying to understand their pain points.

Kaylee Estes [00:20:55]:
And when I'm having that conversation with a client, it usually goes one of two ways. One, they already know that we offer embedded recruiting and they're interested in that specifically so we can like very clearly just go down that path. The other one is they haven't heard about it, but they need to hire multiple roles. Maybe they don't have an internal recruiter. Maybe it's an HR people person of one. The idea of taking multiple jobs, contingent, sure, I'll take that money. But a more efficient and cost effective route is to go embedded and let us help you in an internal capacity. So I highlight both options.

Kaylee Estes [00:21:36]:
And sometimes some companies still choose the more expensive route of going contingent because it's what they know and what they're used to, but then the ones that are willing to take a chance on something new, like, they've had really great results, they've saved money, but we've still made money. So it's kind of a win win all around and we're able to effectively hire for their teams.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:54]:
With everything that you know about all those really shitty messages that you got over the years, like, how have you changed your structure in your sales pitches?

Kaylee Estes [00:22:02]:
Yeah, I'm very, very hesitant to do cold outreach. I'll be honest. The majority of our clients are coming in through our network or are referred to us through our network. I was looking back at my client list, like preparing for this call, and every single client has been a warm connection, a lead or an introduction in that way. So we really nurture our network and our referral network. The other thing, we are doing some cold outreach, but I'm doing mostly my business development through LinkedIn. So my goal is to try and connect with as many people in our ideal kind of network or profile as possible and then send them like very personalized messaging. And most of the messaging that I send is around embedded because they're already getting a million messages about contingent recruiting anyways.

Kaylee Estes [00:22:56]:
So I'm not really going to throw that out there. But if I see, hey, you don't have an internal recruiter or you have a people operations team of one and you've got 15 job openings, you should look into this. And so I do a little bit of outreach on LinkedIn. I send voice notes to people and things like that. I haven't cracked the code, but, you know, it's worth a shot. And all of our messaging's around embedded.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:19]:
You've said almost everything's been referral based. And because you've been nurturing your network. When you say nurturing your network for somebody listening, what does that actually mean?

Kaylee Estes [00:23:27]:
Yeah, so it's intentional outreach. It's connecting with people, it's texting them when you're thinking about them, it's taking them out to L. It's all of the things that you're kind of taught at an agency around like, hey, you need to go on meetings and things like that. But much more intentional and much more personal. So I have a relationship list that I stay in touch with, like at least once a month. I'm sending them a note. I'm just saying, hi, how are your kids? What have you been up to? You know, things like that. I'm not making it transactional.

Kaylee Estes [00:24:00]:
And then every once in a while I would say Probably I try and do a video call, a virtual coffee, a coffee meeting, a lunch, at a minimum, like once a quarter with certain people that I really am intentional about trying to work with down the road. But I also just like them and want to stay in touch and have had these great relationships over the years and it works out.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:22]:
So for somebody looking at this, like creating this relationship list, should they build it on an Excel spreadsheet? How do you like, systematize this? Yeah, so it's not like, oh, this is a great idea, Then like into Q3, like, what was that list again?

Kaylee Estes [00:24:35]:
I know, yeah, that's actually like such an important thing to think about, especially if you're going out on your own. You have to put systems in place because you can't do it all. You have to block your time and things like that. So I do have an Excel spreadsheet. Not Hyper Advanced, it's a Google sheet. And then I have an applicant tracking system where I can schedule reminders for myself. And I time block my week. So I have two days a week that I focus on business development.

Kaylee Estes [00:25:01]:
And I systematically go through my relationship list and think about when's the last time I talked with them. I always set a reminder if I have coffee with somebody, I'm setting a reminder a month later to text them, I'm setting a reminder to email them. And I follow that like pretty religiously. So I think you have to come up with a system that works for you, that you can hold yourself accountable to and make it as simple as possible. So that's what's worked for me. And it's taken, you know, two years of iterating on it. We also have a virtual assistant that helps us out and she's been really great about organizing my calendar and helping me like, keep everything on track. So yeah, that's how we manage it.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:41]:
So, you know, for somebody that wants to start doing this and they don't want to come off creepy, how do you do this while building trust in these, like, potential clients or your clients to make this, like, actually work?

Kaylee Estes [00:25:53]:
Yeah, I see what you mean. So I think it's playing the long game and understanding that, you know, you're not going to work with them right away. And that's not really the point. I think removing as much of the transactional feel as possible is really important because that builds trust. When you're coming across as like, I'm trying to sell something or I'm only talking to you because I want to do business with you or because I want to know somebody in your network, that's the only reason you're reaching out to somebody. It's going to come across transactional and it's going to add friction to your process, to the relationship that you're building. So if I'm going out to coffee with a co founder, I'm not going out to coffee to try and work with them. I'm going out to coffee to understand like how did you build your company? What do you care about? What advice do you have? For me as a business owner and I'm asking them a lot of questions and like building on that relationship and it's a win for me because I'm learning from them.

Kaylee Estes [00:26:50]:
And then if they ever need something, support, hopefully they think of me and I just try and stay around, you know, so they think of me and can call me if they need it.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:59]:
Well, and with your model with the embedded stuff, you actually have a team now, right?

Kaylee Estes [00:27:03]:
Yeah, we have a few recruiters that help. So basically the way they'll work is we bring on a new client that needs an embedded recruiter and we place a recruiter with them. And then we also have kind of like a client manager person. So I'm playing that role for the majority of our clients right now where I'm there really to like remove blockers make are going well and then the internal recruiter is truly like embedded in their team and is executing on the day to day recruiting.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:31]:
When somebody's embedded, like are they able to use like the company's tools and all this stuff or is that part of the your guys's thing or you have to bring all this to the table yourself?

Kaylee Estes [00:27:41]:
Yeah, that's a great question. It depends. And that's maybe the hardest part about what we do is that it is so client specific. So we have some clients that are larger. Maybe they're a series C company, they have an existing recruiting team, Maybe they have four people, they have an ATS, they have a LinkedIn, they have all the things we just drop into their stuff and that way they can keep all of their data. We have other clients where literally it's a company of 30 people. They have one head of TA, she does TA and people ops. They don't have a LinkedIn license, they don't have job postings, they do have an ATS, so we bring our own LinkedIn license to that.

Kaylee Estes [00:28:17]:
So it really depends on the client. But if they need us to have our own tools, we do. We all have a recruiter license, we have sourcing tools and Things like that. So we definitely can bring that to the table if they don't have it already, which a lot of small companies don't. You know, a lot of them price.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:33]:
It a little different if they don't have the tools.

Kaylee Estes [00:28:35]:
Yeah, you have to build it in. You kind of have to factor that in. You, I mean, LinkedIn's expensive so you need to make sure that you're kind of factoring that into your pricing.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:43]:
And how do you, like when you're sitting there selling this, like, you know, you just close another deal, like how do you choose which recruiter works and why work?

Kaylee Estes [00:28:49]:
So I think that intake call in the beginning is really important to get to know the client, to decide who is going to be the best fit for them. So right now I'm at the size where everybody that's working with me, I've worked with before. So I know them really well, I know their strengths, I know where they'll, you know, crush it. And so I would never put, you know, somebody who's never done technical recruiting with a client that only needs engineering support. Just like I wouldn't put a technical recruiter on go to market. So I really think about their skill set and making sure that the area they're focusing, focusing on is within their wheelhouse.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:24]:
So, you know, I just absolutely love this because it's like a different way to serve your clients. And especially sometimes when the market gets a little crazy, you know, like looking back at everything like when you were facing that split decision of like, do I want to chase this like embedded fractional model or do I want to go like retained? Like what? Yeah, how did you really land on those decisions?

Kaylee Estes [00:29:47]:
Yeah, so one of the biggest pieces of advice that I got first starting out was to be flexible and to be open minded and try different things. And so we've tried all different types of models with our clients, again being really client specific. And I would say that we offer like a range of services. We do offer retained, but for some clients that's just not going to be the right fit. They're not going to get the full service that they need. But maybe for some clients, like they're super small, they don't have an ats, they don't need you managing their applicant pipeline. We'll do retained with them and that works out fine. We just meet with them weekly, we execute the search, they partner with us closely, but they don't need us doing all of the systems and stuff like that.

Kaylee Estes [00:30:31]:
And then the fully embedded, you know, we have one recruiter right now is working 40 hours a week for a client. So like truly, they're like fully dedicated to that client, fully embedded. And so when we think about like, what to offer, when and how and things like that, we're really focusing on like the client's needs and trying to cater a solution that makes the most sense for them. And I think longer term, we'll probably fine tune our offering a bit more specifically. But right now, being flexible is winning for us. You know, I think we've had competition on almost every client that we've sold to. And I think coming up with a solution that's like hyper focused on them has been kind of like the winning ticket for us.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:14]:
So like, you're competing against other embedded companies too, that these companies are looking at kind of.

Kaylee Estes [00:31:19]:
That's less. We're competing with contingent firms. It's funny, most companies, they'll meet with us and they'll be like, okay, well, we're talking to a few other people, but they're not talking to other embedded recruiting firms because there aren't as many doing that specific work. And then they'll go talk to a contingent firm and realize how much it's going to cost to fill six jobs and they're not going to do that.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:39]:
So how are you looking at expanding this business model in the future?

Kaylee Estes [00:31:43]:
Yeah, so I think that's a great question. I've thought about this a lot over the last year. It's definitely the direction we want to keep building. I think I want to do it in a smart way. We're not going to rapidly expand too fast to where all of a sudden we have like 15 employees or things like that. So we'll have to grow in a smart way. I think each recruiter can handle probably two clients, depending on the need. Now, of course, the one recruiter is doing 40 hours a week.

Kaylee Estes [00:32:09]:
That's one client. Right. They're not going to have two. So I think the way that we'll build it out is kind of think about what our recruiters can handle and probably a max of two clients per recruiter. It's an exciting problem to solve. I wouldn't say that I'm an expert in operations by any means, but we're making it work. And my goal is I'm the type of business owner where I will say yes, but I'm not going to say yes to things that I know we can't deliver on. So we're going to grow in a way that we know we can do really good work.

Kaylee Estes [00:32:37]:
And if that means we grow a little bit slower. That's okay with me. I'm fine with that as long as we can do a good job.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:43]:
So somebody's listening to this, they're like, you know what, I'm going to try this out.

Kaylee Estes [00:32:46]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:47]:
And I'm going to look at embedded. What's the first piece of advice that you would say to them to actually try implementing this with a client?

Kaylee Estes [00:32:52]:
Yeah, I would say if you've done in house recruiting, you should try it first. Like your expertise as an internal recruiter is so valuable when executing this model. I would be more hesitant to advise somebody to do it if they've never worked inside of a company before. If you've only done agency recruiting, this is going to be a big learning curve and I'm not sure you want to learn that on the client side. So I would think about your strengths and think about, okay, is this actually leaning into my strengths? If you don't have any internal recruiting expertise, I would look more at the retained route is probably the better way to get recurring revenue that's more predictable. If you're sick of doing contingent, I've.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:35]:
Always wondered like why so many. This is going to sound dumb, but why so many recruiters that got laid off over the last few years didn't like spin up and go fractional themselves?

Kaylee Estes [00:33:44]:
Yeah, I think there's definitely a space for that. I mean there's a lot of solopreneurs out there that are like, I can take on two clients, I'll recruit for them on kind of like a contract part time basis, fractional basis. I think it's hard though because you're still doing business development and you're also kind of still applying for a job because sometimes you'll see like contract recruiter postings. Right. And that might be a good lead for you if you're trying to do this yourself as kind of like a one person shop. But I think people are also scared of maybe the operations side of building a business. Like you know what it takes to build a business, you've done it. I think once you've done it, you know that more people could do it.

Kaylee Estes [00:34:22]:
They're just afraid of like that barrier of entry, I guess. But yeah, if you have the idea, I think it's worth a shot. And internal recruiters like they have so much expertise to share. They don't only need to give it to one company. If they have the ability to work with a few different companies, I think that's great.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:38]:
So what else should agency recruiters know about internal recruiters to win.

Kaylee Estes [00:34:44]:
So I think the biggest difference is like a mindset difference. When you're an agency recruiter, and I was for five years, like, you're all about getting the place placement, the placement against all odds, right? Like, we're going to overcome obstacles, we're going to remove the barriers, we're getting the deal done. And in a lot of cases, that's great. But an internal recruiter, they're more like, like. The analogy I like to give is they sit on the people, operations team. It's like a spider web. Everything they do connects to the rest of the company. Every hire they make impacts the company.

Kaylee Estes [00:35:18]:
It impacts the cost of the company, it impacts the culture of the company, it impacts the productivity of the company. And these are just different mindsets that an internal recruiter has that an external recruiter can't even really think about. And so the advice that I would give is if you get an opportunity to sit down with a head of TA and you're trying to win their business, stop selling and start asking them about their business, about why this hire is important, how it will impact things like the operating cost of the business, the culture of the business, the productivity of the business, and understand why the stakes are high for literally every job. And I think that when you start asking really good questions around that and show genuine curiosity and why this hire matters, you're building credibility. You're showing that you know what you're talking about, that you're not focused on you and doing a deal. You're focused on helping your client. And I think that's like the biggest piece of advice that I would give to a new salesperson at an agency is to drop the transactional. You know, our fee is 25%.

Kaylee Estes [00:36:26]:
I'll give you a deal at 20%. Let's go get this done. We'll get you 15 resumes by Friday. Stop. Most companies don't want that.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:34]:
I love that. Well, before we jump over to the quickfire questions, I know we covered a lot about, you know, the RPO to fractional to embedded to contingent retained model. Is there anything else that you want to share about that?

Kaylee Estes [00:36:44]:
I think what I would share is if you're a company or you're a head of TA and you haven't partnered with an embedded recruiter, think about it as an extension of your team. And if your team is really underwater and you can't go make a full time hire, but you need to hire like 5, 10, 15 people really quickly, it's a really Great option because you're getting the full support from beginning to end of the process. So I think for a lot of people it's new, it's a model they've never tested out. But it's a great alternative to having to make a full time hire and to taking all of your roles to contingent market. So that's what I would say. And I think if there's anybody listening, like, hey, I've been thinking about starting something like this, you definitely can. There's a ton of opportunity for it and I would just start poking your network and listening to their pain points and see if this solution would help them.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:35]:
Love that. Well, jumping over the quickfire questions and this is gonna be fun.

Kaylee Estes [00:37:38]:
Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:39]:
You know, with everything that you know now, the craziness of the market with AI coming, somebody's just starting off in the recruiting chairs. 20, 25, they hit you up on LinkedIn, like, what's the one piece of advice that you would give me to have a successful career in recruiting?

Kaylee Estes [00:37:52]:
Yeah. So I would say if you're thinking about going into recruiting, I would start on at an agency. I think as much as I love in house recruiting, I would start at an agency. Because you're gonna talk to the most people and you are going to go through all of the crazy experiences that you hear about and you're going to learn how to navigate those, you're going to get the reps and you have to build that muscle. You need to have the instinct on. They say this, I say this kind of thing. So I think if you're thinking about where to start, I would start at an agency. If you're already at one or you're thinking about going out on your own, or you're just thinking about how to have a great year, I would focus on first, like, why are you doing this? Like, stay focused on your why, because that'll hopefully motivate you to do a good job in everything that you're doing.

Kaylee Estes [00:38:41]:
So focus on your why. And I would try to talk to as many people as possible. I think whether you're in a sales seat, whether you're in a recruiting seat, those conversations and being genuinely curious and interested in what the other person is saying are going to lead to more conversations, more referrals, more introductions and things like that. And so it'll kind of snowball. So I think being genuinely curious, talk to a lot of people and just focus on why you're doing it in the first place.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:12]:
Same question. But for somebody that's been around the block 10, 20 years.

Kaylee Estes [00:39:15]:
Yeah. I would ask yourself why you don't own your own agency. Seriously. I would ask yourself, like, if you love where you're at, stay where you're at and just keep doing what you're doing. It sounds like it's working really well. But if you have a book of business that you've grown over the last 15, 20 years, I would ask yourself, why am I not out on my own? What's preventing me from doing that? And I would really think about if that would make sense or not, because I think at a certain point, it definitely does make sense for most people.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:47]:
Agree with you on that.

Kaylee Estes [00:39:48]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:48]:
Do you have, like, a favorite tech tool or system that you've built out?

Kaylee Estes [00:39:53]:
That's a good question. So one of my favorite tools that I've used, I really like Jim. I use Jim in house. Their email campaigns are great for sourcing and things like that. I really like Juicebox. I know they sponsored your summit. This is not a plug. But I really like them because I think their AI filtering is really interesting.

Kaylee Estes [00:40:13]:
You can do really effective searches. So most of the tooling that we have is around sourcing. So I'd say that find a sourcing tool that you really like. We also, you know, we're really proficient with LinkedIn recruiter. I know people love to be like, you don't need LinkedIn recruiter to be successful. You do. Like, that's my stance. But, yeah, I really like Juice Box Jim.

Kaylee Estes [00:40:34]:
And then on the internal side, I really like Ashby. I think that's a great ats. It's whenever our clients are like, we work with Ashby. I'm like, that's great. He'll be really easy to use. And they're really efficient.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:46]:
You hear like, the horror stories like Workday or ukg.

Kaylee Estes [00:40:49]:
Oh, yeah. Or, hey, everything's in a spreadsheet. Oh, boy.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:54]:
Google folders.

Kaylee Estes [00:40:55]:
It's truly a thing, though. We work with a couple of clients that they have no ATS in place. They don't even know what an ATS is. And then they start. We've helped a few clients implement an ATS and kind of go through that process. And there's always the sticker shock that I'm like, you don't understand how much harder your life is by not having this.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:14]:
Years ago, I did the same for some consulting clients in the govcon space. And they're like, ATSs are expensive. And I'm like, you understand all the OFCCP requirements that you're supposed to be filling out. Like, this is Going to cost you even more.

Kaylee Estes [00:41:25]:
Oh yeah, I know the compliance piece. And just like losing candidates, I don't know, I. Keeping them organized in a spreadsheet is a very short term solution to a much longer term problem.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:38]:
Do you have a favorite book that's had an impact on your career?

Kaylee Estes [00:41:41]:
Yeah. So I'll be honest, I'm not a huge reader. Well, I guess audiobook now count as reading, but I just read Traction. So we use EOS for our business. So traction was really helpful for me as a founder to think about, like how to set up structure. And my executive coach recommended it and that's been a really good book. But I actually sat down and read cover to cover and took notes and we're using it in our daily business operations, so that's really helpful.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:09]:
How did you guys actually implement Traction into your recruiting business or EOS into your recruiting business?

Kaylee Estes [00:42:14]:
So we're starting small. We're not like going full blown EOs, because honestly, to do that well, I think you need an EOS implementer. Where we started was really digging in on our mission, our vision, and our three differentiators. Like these are the big things that we do differently than other people. And making sure that everybody at the company understands the mission and the vision. And then we use, they call them rocks for goal setting. So we do quarterly rocks that we check in on once a week. So everybody owns a rock that we're working towards.

Kaylee Estes [00:42:48]:
And this year our big goal was building recurring revenue. So we've been really focused on that as a business and EOS is kind of helping us stay on track with it.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:59]:
Love that. Now, like, recruiting is hard. It's not like this podcast is like the highlight reel of all the sunshine and roses.

Kaylee Estes [00:43:05]:
Yeah, totally.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:06]:
I'll be honest, it's hard.

Kaylee Estes [00:43:09]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:10]:
Like, how do you get through that funk? Or those hard days or those hard weeks?

Kaylee Estes [00:43:14]:
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. Benjamin, the girl that I work with, we've been working together for the last almost two years and we started out the same agency years ago. We talk about this all the time. Like there are such high highs and such low lows in recruiting. And we both received the advice that you need to kind of cruise in the middle of. Like, be excited about your wins, grieve the difficult moments, but you need to focus on like kind of cruising forward. So that's one thing I try and do when we're in like a low point. We had some really, really hard times last year.

Kaylee Estes [00:43:50]:
Like, we had contingent clients doing things that were Just insane. And I had a few moments last year where I was like, why am I even doing this? And I got help, I got an executive coach. I really invested in that and it definitely helped kind of turn things around for me and like, my mindset and I just really stay focused on, like, why am I doing this? And I want to own my own business. It's a goal I've always had. I have three kids. I want to be super present in their life. So having a boss or working at a corporation is just not going to work for me right now. And so I stay really focused on that and it usually brings me back to earth.

Kaylee Estes [00:44:29]:
But there are plenty of times where I'm like, I cannot believe this client just did this thing or this candidate just said this crazy thing. And, you know, you just kind of have to get through it and realize it's just part of dealing with people. We're in the people business.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:43]:
We are in the people business. Well, that also goes into the next question. Like, do you have three kids?

Kaylee Estes [00:44:47]:
Like, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:48]:
Now, looking back on my past life before having a kid, I'm like, I don't think I've ever would have listened to advice from a previous me. But like, how do you jungle, like wanting to be actively involved.

Kaylee Estes [00:44:59]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:00]:
How do you juggle all that? While still a growing recruiting business?

Kaylee Estes [00:45:04]:
Yeah. So I'm hyper crazy about my calendar. I own my calendar. I build in my blocks for my kids. I pick my kids up in carpool every single day. I also ask for help when I need it. Trust me, I've gone through all the phases of being a working mom. Like when I was at my first agency, I was a mom.

Kaylee Estes [00:45:23]:
I had my kids in full time daycare. I was getting them at 6 o'clock. We were eating easy Mac and going to bed. You know what I mean? Like, we had that life. I've had a nanny, I've had all the different things. Right now we don't have one, but my oldest is about to go into high school. My youngest is about to start kindergarten. So our life is like just crazy.

Kaylee Estes [00:45:43]:
And it's a balancing act. And you just have to be really specific about prioritizing your calendar, prioritizing your time. And I work at times where maybe like other people wouldn't want to work on a Sunday, but I will because I enjoy it. And we have a break in our day and I can. And it allows me to pick my kids up in carpool every day. So I just really build my schedule around my kids, not around work but it all has worked out pretty well. So there are definitely, like, hard times. My husband travels a lot for work, and those weeks are really tough.

Kaylee Estes [00:46:17]:
But we get through it, and I ask for help and have a really good village around me, as they say.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:22]:
So if you want to go bath, actually, like, you know, I think the last summit was rock. The year was amazing. But one of the things I scheduled, I was able to pick my son up every single day.

Kaylee Estes [00:46:31]:
Yeah, it's awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:34]:
Like, I mean, I literally booked the entire summit. So that way I see my son every day and pick him up.

Kaylee Estes [00:46:38]:
Yes. I mean, you kind of have to do that. And I think people are more open to it now. Like, yeah, you know, and maybe this world of, like, remote work has made it more possible. Possible. But I remember getting this piece of advice that your teenager will always talk to you in the car. Like, that's, like, a piece of advice that's always stuck with me. Like, if you ever need to talk to your teenager, get them in the car and they'll talk with you.

Kaylee Estes [00:46:59]:
And so not driving my teenager around is not an option. I drive her that minivan. We are going to dance. We're talking to candidates, we're talking to clients from the minivan. We're talking to Charlotte about what's going on in her world. And to me, that's just kind of one of those things that I'm not willing to give up. And it might stress me out more because I'm on the move and it'd be easier to be at my computer. But I only have four more years with her at home, so I'm gonna drive her to all the places, and hopefully she'll talk to me.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:31]:
Awesome. Well, kind of like looking back in time and with everything that you learned, if you can give yourself advice going back to when you started In January of 2023, what advice would you give yourself?

Kaylee Estes [00:47:41]:
Yeah, the advice I would give myself would be trust your instincts. It is okay to do things differently. I think the comparison factor is a really big deal. Especially, like, you see people posting on LinkedIn every day about what they're doing and how it's working so well. And, like, you should do this or you should do that. Like, I think the advice I would give myself is just be confident in what you know, trust your instincts on certain things and just give it a try. You really have nothing to lose. Do good work and just stay focused on doing things the right way, and it will pay off.

Kaylee Estes [00:48:17]:
And, I mean, trust me, I was, like, the most nervous new business owner there ever was. I stressed about literally everything. And looking back, I think, you know, sweating the small stuff, I probably would let go a little bit and just be like, just go for it. There's no reason not to love that. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:35]:
So, you know, you talk to recruiters, I see, like, how you're posting, like you've done a great job with your content. Recruiters are hitting you up, asking questions, you know, on top of the way that you're designing content for your clients. I'm sure you get questions about, like, you know, how do you do this? How do you be fractional? How do you actually find new business? But in all those questions, is there a question that you actually wish they would ask you?

Kaylee Estes [00:48:55]:
Yeah. So in our coaching, in the executive coaching that I have, we also do group coaching with other agency owners, and that's been really great. And one question that I received, which we kind of touched on earlier, is how can an agency recruiter or somebody who's in the agency seat selling kind of like break through the noise with a head of ta? And we talked about this earlier, but I think just to reiterate it, it is being relationship driven. It is being focused on not the transaction, but really solving the pain point of the company and trying to, as much as possible, possible without being in their shoes, trying to understand why not making this hire is like harming their business, why it's important to them, really what they need to be successful, and just trying to understand more of, like, their business problems and like, backing into it from there. And I think the heads of TA that I know, they always go with the recruiters that they trust the most. So you need to build that trust. And sometimes it takes takes time, and you have to be patient with it. You're not going to win every first, you know, business call that you have with somebody.

Kaylee Estes [00:50:07]:
So I think trying to, like, close that gap is the biggest piece of advice that I can give because I find that I'm interacting with heads of talent most often. Of course, like, another ideal client profile would be like a VP of engineering, a cto, an engineering manager, things like that. But really like the people that make the decision around what staffing firms to use. It's most often the head of people operations or the head of recruiting.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:32]:
Absolutely. Well, for people that want to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Kaylee Estes [00:50:36]:
Yeah, well, I'm on LinkedIn, so you can follow me there. And then my company is called Estu's Group. We don't have much social media. It's really just me on LinkedIn and.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:45]:
Our website, so it'll drop in in the show notes. But you're also going to be speaking at finishing youg're Strong Too in October, so that's gonna be fun.

Kaylee Estes [00:50:52]:
I'm so excited. Yeah, I have plenty of time to prepare.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:56]:
Well, before I let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with your listeners?

Kaylee Estes [00:51:00]:
I think I would just say, like, if you've had the idea of starting your own business, just ask yourself why you haven't done it yet. I think I'm all for encouraging people to go out on their own and at least trying it. It can be so rewarding, both from, like, personal fulfillment, but also financially and things like that. So if you're ever thinking about it, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to share everything I did wrong, the things that I did right, and everything in between.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:24]:
Awesome. Well, I'm excited that we had this conversation, just because there are so many different ways that we can serve our clients and so many different ways that we can set up our business.

Kaylee Estes [00:51:34]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:34]:
And so many different ways that we can design the path for our future.

Kaylee Estes [00:51:38]:
Yeah, I totally agree.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:39]:
So go out there, figure out the path that's perfect for you, listen to your clients and figure out what they need, and go crush 20, 25, a hundred percent. Thank you, guys.

Kaylee Estes [00:51:48]:
Thank you.