As the job market continues to evolve, more and more people are on the lookout for flexibility in their careers. Freelancing has become a popular option for those who want to control their schedules, work independently and make their own decisions. Statistica has recently projected that the number of freelancers in 2027 will reach 86.5 million and will make up 50.9% of the total workforce in the United States.

One freelancing career option that has really taken off in the last year is recruiting.

As we all know, a typical career path for an agency recruiter is to build up a wide network of clients and candidates within their niche and eventually start their own agency. However, you can now make an incredible amount of money as a recruiter without working for an agency or dealing with the hassle of starting and running a business. You could even do it without ever constructing another business development email, cold calling a hiring manager, or mass mailing a CV.

The tides are slowly turning and over the last year, there’s been a latent shift in the tech industry’s RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) and we’re now seeing the emergence of various platforms that are banding together with tech companies and opening the gates for anyone to sign up, submit the right candidates to open roles and earn placement fees (the latest jargon refers to them as bounties).

It’s a win-win. A company signs up and posts a bounty for a role they need filling at a fraction of the price that an agency would charge them, all while avoiding having to juggle multiple accounts on their Preferred Suppliers List (PSL). 

Meanwhile, a recruiter signs up and without having to do any business development, can start searching for and referring candidates to tons of open roles and earn triple the amount that they’d earn working for an agency. 

It's safe to say there's going to be a lot more of this in the future:

So let’s dive right into the pioneers disrupting the recruitment industry as a whole. 

Paraform

Industry: Tech
Average Bounty: $15,000
Key Perks: Tips, resources, and guidance that help you get your first bounty 

Paraform is a global recruitment marketplace for anyone to sign up and refer candidates for open roles and earn hefty sums. Simply sign up using your email address and get access to a dashboard where you can find hundreds of open roles across Engineering, Design, Product, Marketing, and many more from tech start-ups and scale-ups across the world. 

For every open role, you can view the salary range, bounty, a description of what the hiring manager is looking for as well as feedback history on past candidates. You can then submit a candidate for a role by uploading their resume along with a brief summary about them to the hiring manager.

If your candidate is suitable, they’ll begin the interview process whilst providing feedback along the way. There are usually 2-3 interview stages before a company makes the decision to hire and if your candidate is successful you’ll get your bounty in three installments over the course of a 90-day guarantee. 

For some roles, you can even earn partial rewards if your candidate passes their first round of interviews. 

The average bounty on Paraform is $8,900 and roles can range from a UI/UX Designer to a Vice President of Engineering. Most recruiters work on 6 projects at a time, although there is no limit to how many roles you can recruit for. The more you recruit, the more you earn!

Paraform also offers a guide with resources and recruiting tips for anyone new to technical recruiting that enables them to hit the ground running and make their first bounty in no time.

Job Protocol

Industry: Web3
Average Bounty: $15,000
Key Perks: Getting paid in Cryptocurrency

Job Protocol is a decentralized recruitment network that enables Web3 companies to fill their open roles faster by offering the chance for anyone to sign up and refer candidates.

You simply sign up and view a dashboard of tons of roles in Web3 space as well as receive recommended roles via Focus Recommendation, an indicator of which roles they believe your time sourcing candidates is best spent.

As soon as you refer three candidates that are approved in the Job Protocol review, you will be able to submit your candidate for the bounty and see your candidate stats. If your candidate gets hired, you will get your bounty in the standard three-part process in cryptocurrency USDC, valued the same as the US dollar, as there are no transaction costs associated.

Jobs in Web3 and Blockchain have significantly higher salaries than most industries so it should come as a pleasant surprise when you see a bounty set for $40,000 (not bad for a couple of weeks’ work, right?). It's also worth joining their discord server where you’ll find answers to any questions you have and get the latest updates about the platform. 

Hirechain

Industry: Web3
Average Bounty: N/A
Key Perks: You can receive up to 25% of a bounty if your candidate gets interviewed

Hirechain, set to launch in Q1, is going to be a platform that allows anyone to sign up and refer candidates for numerous roles posted by companies in the Web3 space.

You can join the Beta sign-up where the team manually reviews each application and notify you via email once your application is activated. You’ll then be able to browse open roles, refer candidates, track your referrals and earn a substantial amount of money.

A key attribute of Hirechain is that even if your candidate doesn’t get hired, you can still earn a large reward as 75% of the bounty goes to the person who referred the candidate that got hired and other referrers of candidates that landed an interview split the remaining 25%.

If your candidate is hired or interviewed by the company, you will receive your share of the bounty 95 days after the successful hire starts working for the company. At the moment, Hirechain is launching with permanent roles but will soon facilitate bounties for contract and temporary hires.

Freelance recruiters can also earn by referring a friend to the platform with a unique link and get 10% (or $1000) of that person’s first bounty. They too have a discord server where you can join for the latest news on their platform and meet others in the Web3 community.

Relancer

‍Industry: Multiple
Average Bounty: N/A
Key Perks: A dedicated team that matches you with open roles in your chosen niche

Relancer is sort of like Fiverr but just for recruiters. You build your profile according to the industry, roles and geography of your choosing and your skill set, and the platform will match you with relevant recruitment projects. 

Unlike the others on this list, you have the option of setting your own price and choosing your own compensation model.

You are teed up to work with clients directly as a freelance recruiter and all contracts are between the client and yourself. Relancer takes a cut which is:

• 15% of the first €10,000 billed with the client, 
• 10% for lifetime billings with the client between €10,001 and €20,000
•  5% for lifetime billings with clients that exceed €20,000.

The platform tends to be a lot more of a collaborative effort between the Relancer team and freelance recruiter as opposed to being a middleman between recruiter and company as they provide you with an account manager to help in every step of the way and a business development team bringing in new clients daily. 

Bounty Hunter World

Industry: Multiple
Average Bounty: $4500
Key Perks: The points-based system allows you to get first access to new roles

Bounty Hunter World provides a seamless referral program for recruiters, you download the app, create your profile, refer candidates and earn bounties. Every Bounty Hunter starts with a reputation of 100 points and for each recommendation that you make that is rejected as ‘Not Suitable’ your reputation will decrease.

For each suitable recommendation, your reputation increases by 1 point; if your candidate is interviewed you get 5 points; if they get hired, 10. 

So it’s important to keep your rating up and make sure you’re sending through the right people as those with the higher number of points will get quicker access to new roles and are most likely to have their candidate viewed and interviewed. 

Bounty Hunter World is spreading far and wide and has a variety of roles in various industries from Oil & Energy to Communications and Finance.

Best tool to succeed on above platforms

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