Why Recruitment Needs to Break the Link Between Headcount & Revenue Growth | Kris Holland

Nitin speaks with Kris Holland, Founder of Kitto, to challenge the recruitment industry's assumption that headcount growth automatically drives business growth. Kris argues that recruitment businesses should rethink how they deploy money, people, technology and time, moving away from the traditional model of hiring more recruiters towards a more deliberate, marketing-led approach.

The conversation explores why recruitment businesses still use headcount as a success metric despite falling profitability, the hidden costs of hiring and training recruiters who underperform, and how marketing, content, events and communities can generate inbound opportunities. Kris emphasises that recruitment is fundamentally a marketing job, not as a replacement for great recruiters, but as a way of giving them better opportunities, relationships and tools to convert.