Every recruitment firm thinks the way to attract top billers is to offer a bigger commission percentage. They're wrong. The commercial details matter, but they're not what actually moves the needle for someone billing £250k+ a year.
I've spent the past two and a half years placing senior recruitment professionals into some of London's top boutiques. The candidates I work with are experienced, commercially sharp, and rarely short of options. When they decide to move, commission is almost never the primary driver. It's a hygiene factor. It needs to be competitive, but it's not what gets someone to hand in their notice.
So what does?
Leadership. Every time.
The single most consistent theme in every conversation I have with high-performing recruiters is the quality of the person at the top. They want to know who the founder is, what they've built, and whether they're someone worth following. Not in a corporate, hierarchical sense. In the sense of: is this person going to push me to be better than I already am?
Top billers are competitive by nature. They want to be around people who are operating at a level above them, or at least alongside them. A founder who has built a genuine business, who still understands the market, and who leads from the front rather than from a spreadsheet - that's what creates pull. The moment a candidate senses that leadership is passive, disconnected, or purely managerial, they lose interest. Regardless of what the commission structure looks like.
The people around the table
This goes beyond the founder. Top billers want to know who else is in the room. Are they joining a team of people who are all pulling in the same direction? Are these people they'd aspire to be like? Is there a genuine culture of collaboration, or is it just a collection of individuals sitting in the same office?
The best firms I work with have a common thread: their top performers actually talk to each other. They share market intelligence, they challenge each other, and there's a sense of collective ambition that goes beyond individual billing targets. That's incredibly hard to manufacture, and experienced recruiters can smell when it's real versus when it's a line in a job advert.
Being pushed, not managed
There's an important distinction here. The recruiters I place don't want to be managed. They don't want weekly pipeline reviews, mandatory BD call targets, or someone looking over their shoulder asking why they haven't hit 40 CVs this month. They've been doing this long enough to know how to run their desk.
What they do want is someone who holds them accountable to their potential. A leader who knows when to push, when to step back, and who creates an environment where doing average work simply isn't acceptable. The best billers are self-motivated, but even they benefit from being in an environment where the bar is set high and the people around them are clearing it.
Then, and only then, does the rest matter
Once a candidate is convinced by the leadership and the team, that's when the commercial details come into play. And at that point, it's less about having the highest percentage on the market and more about everything being fair and aligned.
Commission structure - is it clear, is it achievable, and does it reward growth? Threshold versus no threshold, billing versus collection, accelerators on overperformance. The specifics matter, but only once trust in the leadership is already established.
Client base and market positioning - what accounts come with the desk, how established is the firm's presence in their sector, and are they genuinely known for what they claim to specialise in? A strong biller won't move somewhere they have to build everything from zero unless the upside and the people justify it.
Autonomy - top billers want to run their desk like it's their own business. The freedom to manage their own time, work their accounts their way, and make decisions without three layers of approval. This is non-negotiable for anyone at a senior level.
The operational details - tech stack, CRM, support staff, marketing budget, hybrid flexibility, office environment. None of these will make someone move on their own. But if they're noticeably poor, they'll stop a deal that's otherwise close to the line.
What this means if you're hiring
If you're a recruitment firm struggling to attract experienced billers, the answer probably isn't a higher commission percentage. Look at your leadership team first. Look at the calibre of the people already in the business. Ask yourself honestly whether a top performer would walk into your office and think: these are my kind of people.
Because that's the conversation that's actually happening. Not "what's the split?" but "who am I going to be working with, and are they going to make me better?"
The firms that understand this are the ones that consistently attract and retain the best talent. The ones that don't are forever wondering why their offer got turned down by someone who took less money elsewhere.