Building a Recruitment Empire: The Early Days

The journey from top-performing recruiter to successful business leader requires a significant mindset shift. Melanie DeBeer, Director of Full Circle Selection shares how she built a thriving recruitment business that doesn't rely solely on her personal billings. With over 25 years in the industry, Melanie reveals the pivotal moment when she realized that to scale her business, she needed to step back from day-to-day operations and empower her team.

"The challenge for me was letting go," Melanie admits. "I love every component of recruitment. But I had to make a decision. I can't juggle all of these balls and my business is not going to grow and upscale if I'm doing everything myself."

This candid conversation explores how Melanie transitioned from being fully immersed in the business to working strategically on it, creating a recruitment firm that continues to thrive even when she's not directly involved in every aspect of operations.

Episode Outline and Highlights

• [02:16] How Mark and Melanie go way back in the coaching field, and how she got into the recruitment space.

• [09:49] Going back to basics and avoiding shortcuts: Highlight of Melanie’s career before starting her own business.

• [14:55] How leadership and structure contributed to Melanie’s success factors as a recruiter.

• [22:31] Discussion on the most impactful metrics to look at.

• [26:53] Why you should not be afraid to increase your average fee percentage.

• [31:34] Melanie’s journey of starting her recruitment business.

• [39:25] The milestones of growing the team and how Melanie overcame the biggest challenges.

• [47:32] Transitioning to a mindset of working on the business instead of ‘in the business.’

• [57:54] Approach and best practices to onboard the right people.

The Importance of Going Back to Basics

Before launching her recruitment business, Melanie was an achieving recruiter. Her 25 years of recruitment experience is a colourful collage of peak performance and highlights, and she is very much willing to share her early influences and success factors. 

One mindset that resonates with me is how she values the importance of returning to basics. Going back to basics is crucial for Melanie because it helps her avoid the pitfalls of taking shortcuts, which can negatively impact the quality of her work. Even as an experienced recruiter, she acknowledges that revisiting fundamental principles—such as thoroughly qualifying candidates and job specs—leads to greater success. She ensures a more strategic and sustainable path forward by stepping back, reassessing, and refining her approach, reinforcing the importance of “quality over quantity.”

Melanie also emphasized the following factors that contributed to her success as a recruiter:

• Continuous Learning & Training

• Strong Leadership & Guidance

• Leveraging Strengths

• Structured & Strategic Approach

• Face-to-Face Client Engagement

• Working Smarter, Not Harder 

Focusing on the Most Impactful Metrics and KPIs 

In running your recruitment business, what metrics do you prioritize? Melanie shared the most impactful metrics that they focus on. Below are the takeaways:

• Qualified Specs & Candidate Quality—Before submission, she assesses the qualifications of job specs and candidates, ensuring higher placement success.

• Referrals to Placements Ratio – She tracks how many candidate referrals (submissions) lead to placements, optimizing the process to improve efficiency.

• Number of Placements Per Month – This metric helps monitor overall productivity and revenue generation.

• Placement Fees & Average Placement Value—She focuses on increasing placement fees to ensure higher earnings per deal instead of simply increasing volume. 

• CVs Sent to Referrals Ratio – Tracking how many CVs are needed to secure a referral (candidate submission) helps refine sourcing and qualification strategies.

• Interview Conversion Rate (Referrals to Interviews) – She evaluates how many referred candidates secure interviews, ensuring quality over quantity in submissions.

We also covered why you should not be afraid of increasing your average fee percentage. When done right, doing so will bring advantages and a better perception of your clients.

Working on the Business versus Working In the Business

You'll also enjoy hearing how Melanie has successfully made the shift from being fully in the business to working strategically on the business. This means she's building a business that is not overly reliant on her billings and doesn't require her micro-managing in every little area for things to get done. It was difficult for her at first, because she loves what she does, and even when building a team, there is this tendency for her to get involved in everything. 

What helped her reframe her mindset is by trusting to what her team is capable of. Melanie said, “We talk about teamwork, makes the dream work. So I think there's also that element where I know that I can leave it in their hands. I know that they're going to deliver and they're competent. So again, they've got the skill, they've got the will and I know I can leave it in their hands. We've spoken about what they want to achieve. We know their long-term goals fit in with my long-term goals and they've got the skill. So I could step back a bit more.’

This resulted in Malanie having more breathing space and time to think of more strategies in running their business.

Melanie De Beer Bio and Contact Info 

Melanie Donnelly is an experienced recruitment specialist and Talent Acquisition Coordinator with over 25 years in the finance and engineering sectors. Leading Fullcircle Selection, Melanie excels in aligning top talent with companies' needs, particularly in South Africa. Her client-focused approach and expertise in staff retention and recruitment process improvement have helped her build trusted partnerships and exclusive collaborations. With a strong foundation in sales and client relationship management, Melanie continues to drive impactful hiring outcomes and enhance workforce quality across industries.

• Melanie on LinkedIn

• Fullcircle Selection website link

People and Resources Mentioned

• Dan Martell - Buy Back Your Time 

• Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call

• Mark on LinkedIn 

• Mark on Twitter: @MarkWhitby

• Mark on Facebook

• Mark on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach

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