A few weeks ago, I presented on the difference between a recruiter and a recruitment consultant. It’s a topic that comes up regularly and, if I’m honest, one that I’ve always felt is framed slightly the wrong way.
The question often suggests that one is somehow better than the other. I don’t think that’s true. Both have a place and both can add enormous value. The real difference isn’t in the title someone gives themselves. It’s in the problem they’re being asked to solve.
If a business has an immediate vacancy, needs access to talent quickly and wants someone who can identify, engage and introduce available candidates, a recruiter can be incredibly valuable. There is a genuine skill in knowing the market, building relationships and connecting businesses with people they would otherwise never find.
The challenge is that many of the assignments I work on aren’t really recruitment problems.
They’re business problems that happen to surface through hiring.
I’ve lost count of the number of briefing meetings I’ve attended where the conversation starts with a job title. A Head of Projects. A Commercial Director. A Managing Director. The assumption is often that the role already exists and simply needs filling. Yet after briefing and discussions, it becomes clear that what the business actually needs and what they’ve asked for aren’t necessarily the same thing.
The company has grown. The market has changed. The team structure has evolved. The person who left may have been carrying responsibilities that no longer belong in one role, or perhaps the business is trying to solve future challenges using a job description that was written years ago.
This is where I believe consultancy begins.
Not with a database, a LinkedIn search or a job advert, but with curiosity.
Why does this role exist? What problem are we trying to solve? What will success look like twelve months from now? Why would somebody leave a perfectly good role elsewhere to join this business?
Those questions often reveal far more than any CV ever could.
Over the years, I’ve seen businesses spend months searching for a “perfect” candidate when the real issue was a lack of clarity around the role itself. I’ve seen organisations benchmark candidate after candidate, hoping to find a mythical unicorn, when the reality was that they hadn’t fully agreed what success looked like. I’ve also seen excellent candidates walk away from opportunities because the role being sold during the process didn’t match the reality they discovered later.
Most hiring mistakes aren’t made during the interview process.
They’re baked into the assignment before the search even begins.
That’s why I often say that finding someone is the bare minimum. Not because finding great people isn’t important, but because it’s only one part of the equation. The real value comes before the role goes live. It’s helping a business define what it needs, challenging assumptions where necessary and ensuring the opportunity is attractive to the type of person they genuinely want to hire.
Ironically, finding people is usually the easier part.
The harder part is creating a role that the right person wants to join and, more importantly, wants to stay in.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve become less interested in placements and more interested in outcomes. A signed contract is important, but it’s not the finish line. The real measure of success is whether that person is still thriving in the role a year or two later, whether they’ve delivered what the business hoped they would and whether the hire has genuinely moved the organisation forward.
For me, that’s the distinction. Not recruiter versus consultant. Not good versus bad. Simply a different starting point.
One begins with finding people.
The other begins with understanding what the business actually needs before the search starts.
And in my experience, getting that bit right changes everything.
