Ellie Melanson

Tech is booming and the people who know how to find top talent are in huge demand. A growing recruitment team based in Downtown Tampa is building out its next group of Tech and GTM Recruiters. This is a great fit for people who are competitive, driven, and want a career where performance directly drives income and growth. You’ll work closely with venture-backed startups and rapidly scaling tech companies, helping them hire key talent across areas like: • SaaS • Cybersecurity • DevOps / Infrastructure • Data & AI What makes this team different: • Average search fees around $30K+ • Strong base salary + uncapped commission (up to 30%) • Majority of searches are retained or exclusive • International incentive trips and team rewards • Full benefits + on-site fitness facility • Clear path from entry-level to leadership Who tends to succeed here: • Recruiters looking for a higher-performing environment • Sales professionals who thrive on competition • Recent grads who want a fast-paced, merit-based career If you’re looking for a role where effort translates directly into growth and earnings, this could be a strong next step. 📍 Tampa, FL Feel free to reach out if you'd like to learn more.

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7/7 placements for one client — not luck, repeatable process. Over recent months Fractional Recruiting completed seven permanent P&C placements (avg base ≈ $100K) for a single client. What made it work: referral-first sourcing, deep P&C focus, role clarity + candidate prep, and disciplined process. We’re also introducing targeted AI to cut low-value work and reduce client cost — without losing human judgement. Read the full breakdown → (link in first comment). #PCInsurance #Recruiting #TalentAcquisition #InsuranceCareers

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HIRING If this role resonates, take initiative. Connect with the people involved, communicate your expertise and impact, and share why your background and experience are the solution to what they need. Give yourself the chance to be seen, start a conversation.

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Hiring in Florida? You're not alone — and you're not imagining it. The Florida job market is still hot in Q3, and top talent knows it. Here’s what hiring managers across the state are up against: 🔹Unemployment is holding steady at 3.7% — lower than the national average 🔹433,000+ job openings statewide, with high demand in tech, logistics, healthcare & education 🔹Year-over-year growth in nonfarm jobs is outpacing national averages Translation? You’re not just filling a role — you’re competing for candidates who have options, and they know their worth. Roles that used to take 3 weeks to fill now take 6+... Counteroffers are back (and often winning) Hiring for potential > just resumes is becoming a necessity Now more than ever, success means speed, clarity, and a sharp value proposition — not just for companies, but for candidates. I’m talking to leaders every day who are rethinking how they attract and keep great people. If that sounds familiar, let's connect. #FloridaJobs #TalentStrategy #HiringManagers #ITJobs #LaborMarket

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There’s a clear shift happening right now 👀 Across New York City and San Francisco, payments and fintech companies are moving back toward in-office / hybrid, and it’s having a real impact on senior hiring. At the same time, I’m working with a select group of VP & Director-level sales leaders in payments across both markets: 🔹 VP Sales / Directors managing teams of 10–50 reps 🔹 Consistent track records of $20M–$100M+ annual revenue ownership 🔹 Built and scaled GTM functions from early stage through growth/late-stage 🔹 Deep expertise across merchant acquiring, payfac, and payments infrastructure 🔹 Strong networks across enterprise merchants, ISVs, and platforms What’s interesting: A lot of these leaders are now open to hybrid environments. If you're hiring senior payments leadership in NY or SF and need proven operators who have actually scaled revenue, I likely have someone you should meet. And if you're a VP/Director in payments thinking about your next move as the market shifts - happy to have a conversation. #Payments #Fintech #SalesLeadership #VPsales #Hiring #NewYork #SanFrancisco

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Hot take: Candidates who aren't looking for a new sales opportunity actually like being contacted. They like & respect it. *IF* it's done the right way. Meaning, 1.- Is it relevant to them? And 2.- Would it be a potential step up? (in base pay, overall OTE, responsibilities, title, etc.) That's what they care about. Outreach to passive candidates isn't the problem. Irrelevance is.

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I've helped 4 founders build their founding AE comp plan in the last week. Here's a very simple breakdown of where to start. OTE (on-target-earnings) = Salary + Variable (commission) Salary is pretty straightforward and will typically range anywhere from ~$100-200k depending on seniority / experience level. The easiest way to think about variable compensation is to pay 10% commission on all ACV. Take the salary you're offering, and multiply by 10. That's quota. So if Salary is $125k, quota should be $1.25M. And paying 10% of ACV, you get another $125k in on-target variable compensation ($1.25M * .10). Which brings your total OTE (on-target earnings) to $250k with a quota of $1.25M. aka - if they sell $1.25M, they'll make $250k on the W2. This puts your OTE:quota ratio at 5x, which is generally considered healthy for most SaaS companies (typically anywhere between 4x-6x is reasonable). *Disclaimer: there are a LOT of other aspects to consider that are not covered in the post, this is meant to be a general framework to help the 'get started' piece. **Double Disclaimer: please do not forget that none of this actually matters if you don't have a way to consistently generate top of funnel pipeline to achieve quota. Founding AEs are not magicians.

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Hiring a #GrowthMarketer can make or break your next stage of growth. The challenge? Many candidates can tell a great story in the interview but not all can back it up with results. In her latest article, Bibiana Pulido, Marketing Recruitment Lead, at Martyn Bassett Associates shows founders how to: 👉 Spot the 5 traits every high-impact growth marketer shares 👉 Ask questions that separate doers from talkers 👉 Identify the # 1 red flag you can’t afford to ignore If you’re scaling and need a hire who can hit the ground running, this guide will save you time and costly mis-hires. Full read here 👉 https://bit.ly/3JiqaNI

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Hiring has quietly shifted in the last few months. Across the Greater Philadelphia market, we’re seeing the same pattern with accounting & finance roles: ✔️ Companies want highly specific experience ✔️ Candidates want flexibility and upward mobility ✔️ Processes are moving slower than the market The result? Good candidates are off the market in 10–14 days, while some hiring processes stretch past a month. The companies that are winning talent? Here are a few things they are doing differently: ✅ Tight interview processes (2–3 steps MAX) ✅ Clear compensation details up front ✅ Selling the role, not just evaluating the candidate The market hasn’t swung fully to employers or candidates. It’s just efficient! If your search has been open for 45+ days, it’s usually not a talent problem. It’s a strategy problem.

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Six months after acquiring WorkHound, we officially wrapped up the integration this month. All customers have been migrated to the WorkStep platform and all teammates have settled into their new roles. Reflecting on our first time on the buy-side of the acquisition table, 3 things stick out to me: 1. It comes down to people Synergies are simple in a spreadsheet, but harder to capture in practice. We were lucky that WorkHound’s CEO, Max Farrell, led from the front on the integration effort, and that everyone from the WorkHound side bought into the one platform, one team vision. 2. Trust is the foundation Hundreds of pages of legal docs can lull you into believing trust is rendered moot by the Nth pass of red-lines, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The seller needs to trust they'll be treated fairly, the acquirer needs to trust the business is as-presented, and customers need to trust the migration is in their best interest. 3. There's no "simple" acquisition Even a 2/10 complexity deal creates temporary operational drag—feature gap requests, new collection streams, and senior engineers tied up on one-time migrations. This was meaty enough that it contributed to us hitting pause on a second acquisition opportunity that presented itself a few months later. Even with a great outcome in the end, we made tons of mistakes along the way. Looking forward to at least making different mistakes on the next one.

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Just back from a quick weekend getaway to the Dominican Republic with my team at Vallum Associates Boston and feeling incredibly relaxed. 🌴 As all recruiters know, this is the moment where I’d usually pivot into a post about how time off has "reinvigorated me to jump back into sourcing"... but instead, I want to say something different: In 2024, the median U.S. job tenure for recruitment dropped to 3.9 years, the lowest since 2002. Young workers (25–34) are staying just 2.1 years on average. This isn’t just job-hopping, it’s a clear signal of rising burnout. ​ Meanwhile, the global recruitment industry is growing to $358B+ but firms face a tougher market as burnout reshapes how people ➡️work, quit, and get rehired. Shorter stays = faster burnout. The game is changing. 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙪𝙥, 𝙥𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙣, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙛𝙩𝙨 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙤𝙣 𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙠 𝙞𝙩 𝙤𝙪𝙩. Taking time to truly recharge is essential in our industry. Grateful for a company and a team that recognizes the value of balance. Here's to protecting our energy so we can keep showing up at our best for our clients, candidates, and ourselves. 🙌 #burnout #recharge #mep #vallum #venturefurther Delaney Steele Mackenzie Northburg Thomas B.

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Compensation & earning potential are typically directly tied to the difficulty level of your work in agency recruitment. The roles offering the HIGHEST guaranteed comp packages (e.g. base and/or draw) tend to be the HARDEST roles. For example: - Cold market buildouts to establish a new division/desk (little to no existing client base, bare bones candidate database) - Joining a startup agency (building EVERYTHING out from the ground up) "Easier" roles typically come with lower upfront guaranteed comp because recruiters with a strong skillset should be able to bill & earn commission pretty quickly. For example: - Starting a new role on a well-established, high performing WARM desk (handed open reqs to work on Day 1, can leverage existing relationships, can source from the internal ATS) - Joining a well-established team that does a lot of deal collaborations Unlike other career paths, bases in agency recruitment RARELY are reflective of the recruiter's tenure alone. Typically, top performers command higher bases than low/mid-level performers but the difference isn't usually THAT significant (maybe $5-20k). On a strong comp plan, >50% of agency recruiters' income comes from commission so an agency's commission structure is much more important than the bases they offer. When I'm working with candidates on their comp expectations, I explain this dynamic very often because it is how people should approach comp conversations with agencies. If the agency can show the candidate that they are offering: - A strong platform - Great tech stack - Built out internal database - Potential for cross-selling with existing clients - Access to dormant client relationships (to regen/mushroom) They can reasonably offer a lower base but STILL be a VERY attractive option for recruiters because they'll have few barriers standing in their way to bill as much as possible early on/earn commission ASAP. If an agency is NOT offering ^ factors, they will have to cough up the dough to land good recruiters from other agencies IF they are being honest about what they're actually able to offer (and not lying/bait & switching candidates). THESE are the types of questions candidates need to be asking agency hiring managers in interviews to REALLY understand their business & what they'd be getting into if they joined. If recruiters don't dig into all of these factors when they're interviewing, they're at risk of falling for the hyped up sales pitch that agency hiring managers typically give ("we're the best, we have the best clients, our competition is nowhere near us" blah blah blah). If that is REALLY the case, they can point to all the tangible ways that is because otherwise it's just lip service. If an agency actively discourages, or avoids answering, questions about these topics in your interview process... RUN! PSA to hiring managers: If your agency is in startup/rebuild mode & is a risker move for experienced recruiters, you better not be cheap!!!

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🚨Pay Structure Red Flags 🚨 If your offer/contract leaves you wondering “How exactly do I get paid?”, pause before signing. Ask these questions: 💰 What’s my guaranteed base, and for how long? 📊 Are RVU or collection goals realistic? 🎯 How are bonuses tracked and paid? Sign-on, productivity, annual? 📅 When do reviews or any raises happen? 📋 Deductions: Any reimbursement clauses, overhead charges, or withholdings? 📈 Raises/Reviews: Is there a timeline or criteria for salary adjustments? If you can’t explain your pay model in 1-2 sentences, it’s not clear enough. Get answers now because confusion later can be costly. 📲 DM me or call/text (540) 400-0105 to go over anything together! 📧 mwillis@etspediatric.com #ETSPediatric #PhysicianRecruitment #Pediatrics #Pediatricians #PhysicianCareers #Healthcare #Hiring #PediatricCare #PediatricResidency

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This new $100K H-1B fee raises big questions for staffing firms. What changes, what doesn’t, and how do we adapt? Good insights in this piece

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Attention Boston! Hiring managers: still wondering why you’re not attracting “A” talent? Candidates: curious how you stack up against the market? Associate Director of Marketing- 220K-240K+18-22% target bonus Director of Marketing - 245K-260K+22-25% target bonus Senior Director of Marketing - 265-290K+25-28% target bonus Executive Director of Marketing - 295-330K+30-35% target bonus *This can vary if it is launch focused, inline, downstream vs upstream, etc. Takeaway? Top candidates should know their worth. Hiring managers if your ranges don’t align, the best people won’t even enter into a conversation.

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Still paying high fees to agencies that don’t guarantee results? Fractional recruiting gives you flexibility, cost control, and better hires—without locking you into long-term contracts. If you're hiring this quarter, you need to read this breakdown before spending another dollar on the old model. 👉 Read the blog: https://hubs.li/Q03lB3vP0 #recruiting #talentacquisition #fractionalrecruiting #hrstrategy #costperhire #staffing #hiring

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REDUCING TIME-TO-HIRE IN THE NYC/NJ MARKET-Organizations navigating the highly competitive NYC/NJ region know that securing the right candidate swiftly can make the difference between stagnation and growth. Winston Staffing, a longstanding full-service staffing and recruitment firm, recognizes how crucial it is to keep the hiring process moving. When a role in Accounting, Banking, Construction, Healthcare, Human Resources, or other dynamic sectors goes unfilled for too long, teams strain under the workload, productivity falters, and morale can wane. For more info on how to address this challenge with a strategic approach, please see link in first comment below. #fridayfeels #winstonwisdom #reducingtimetohire #inthemixin2026

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