These in regular employment in 2026 would possibly really feel like they gained the lottery, because the variety of job openings dwindles concurrently layoffs proceed to hit.
This has induced some recruiters to shift their focus from employers to the unemployed: As an alternative of firms hiring recruiters to search out and place expertise, job seekers are actually those enlisting recruiter companies to assist get a foot within the door, coughing up hefty charges (both a flat charge or a lower of the candidate’s first-year wage as soon as they land a job).
The Wall Road Journal not too long ago reported on the trend which has come to be often known as “reverse recruitment.”
One boutique company the Journal spoke with, The Reverse Recruiting Agency, prices $1,500 per 30 days, plus “10% of first-year wage upon job acceptance,” at which period they’ll refund the primary month’s payment. Their companies embrace personalized résumés (with “zero AI-written slop”), hiring supervisor outreach, LinkedIn profile and résumé optimization, and networking help. Their promise? 9 interviews within the first three months, or your a refund.
Refer is one other reverse recruitment company that connects expertise straight with hiring managers utilizing an AI agent, “Lia.” “Lia” is presently making 20-plus introductions each day between candidates and hiring managers who’ve already expressed curiosity of their profiles. The price of touchdown a job with Refer will set new hires again 20% of their first month’s paycheck.
As websites like LinkedIn are flooded with functions and employers depend on AI résumé screeners, candidates are more and more looking for other ways to get their profiles in entrance of the appropriate individuals.
There’s additionally these providing these companies for much less on gig platforms, like Fiverr. However for these with the means, or these determined sufficient, spending a couple of thousand {dollars} to not must undergo the indignities of the job hunt could seem to be a good deal. In search of a job is a time-consuming and infrequently ego-bruising job—particularly contemplating one in four unemployed people, or 1.8 million Individuals, are nonetheless job looking six months later.
A “low-hire, low-fire” setting signifies that, whereas the present unemployment charge isn’t all that dangerous, for these out of labor it’s extremely troublesome to land a job. Roughly a million extra persons are looking for work than there have been out there jobs as of December, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed by Indeed.
Many job seekers using the companies of reverse recruiters could have been unemployed for months—at which level they’ve exhausted their 26 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits, which substitute less than 40% of an individual’s earlier earnings on common.
Right here, pay-to-play hiring is a worrying development and an indication of a bleak job market. When job seekers are made to shoulder the monetary burden of their very own recruitment, with out assured outcomes, it shifts the chance from employers to the unemployed, lots of whom will already be beneath immense pressure and stress.
“Let’s name this what it’s: predatory marketing wrapped in profession teaching language,” a résumé author and former recruiter, Sarah Johnston, posted on LinkedIn.
“It is a darkish area, don’t do it,” founding accomplice of government search agency Cowen Companions, Shawn Cole also posted. “”Reverse-recruiter fashions” usually are not actual or respected recruiting corporations. They’re résumé spammers.”
He added: “Your résumé and livelihood shouldn’t be handled like spam.”
