The Slow Road to Better Recruiting
The recruiting industry has a speed problem. Everyone’s racing to fill roles, hit quotas, and close deals. But what if the fast lane isn’t actually the fastest way to build a sustainable recruiting practice?
I learned this lesson in an unlikely place: the addiction recovery industry. For seven years, I worked with people rebuilding their lives, one careful step at a time. There’s no rushing recovery. You can’t skip steps. You can’t force breakthrough moments. You have to be present, patient, and genuinely invested in each person’s journey.
When I transitioned into recruiting, I brought this same mindset with me. While others were proud of making 100 calls a day, I was having 10 meaningful conversations. While they were racing to push resumes, I was taking time to understand stories. It turns out, the “slower” approach actually moves faster in the long run.
Think about how you build trust in your personal life. You don’t walk up to someone and immediately ask them to make life-changing decisions. Yet that’s exactly what many recruiters do. They’ll cold call candidates on Friday afternoons, pushing for quick decisions when emotions are high and clarity is low.
Instead, I built a framework that respects both time and humanity. First calls are intentionally brief - just location, salary, and schedule. No pressure, no sales pitch. Just like in recovery, you have to meet people where they are, not where you want them to be.
This approach extends to business development too. I never had to make a single cold call to build my practice. Every client came through referrals from my existing network in the recovery industry. When you treat every interaction as a seed for future growth, you never know which conversation will bloom into opportunity.
The same goes for building the business itself. While others raced to scale with fancy offices and large teams, I built around what mattered: family, flexibility, and sustainable growth. Working from home isn’t just a COVID adaptation - it’s a deliberate choice to build a business that serves life, not the other way around.
Here’s what I’ve learned: The path to success in recruiting isn’t about speed - it’s about depth. It’s about taking the time to understand both clients and candidates at a fundamental level. It’s about leveraging your unique expertise, whether that’s from recovery work or another industry entirely.
The irony? By slowing down, you actually speed up. By taking time to build real relationships, you make better matches faster. By focusing on depth over breadth, you build a reputation that brings opportunities to you.
In a world obsessed with quick wins, sometimes the longest road is actually the shortest path to where you want to go.