For the one-person desk
One desk, with nineteen modules behind it
A solo recruiter loses to bigger agencies on coverage, not on skill. Recruitly does the work that would otherwise need a resourcer, a marketer and an administrator — so what is left in your day is the conversations that actually place people.
A solo day, as it really goes
Six jobs, one person — and only the first three of them win anything.
The admin runs itself
The extension sources, the AI does the first read, the sequences chase, the invoice writes itself.
1 system
What actually makes this desk hard
The day goes on work nobody pays you for
Reformatting a CV into your own template. Retyping a phone number into a spreadsheet. Writing the third follow-up to a client who has not replied. None of it is recruiting and all of it is your afternoon.
You can only look in one place at a time
The agency you are bidding against has a resourcer running searches while a consultant is on the phone. On your own, sourcing and selling are the same hour, and you have to pick.
You look like one person, because you are
A Word CV and a webmail address next to a firm with a branded candidate portal is a real disadvantage, and it has nothing to do with how good you are at the job.
What changes when it all runs in one place
Source inside LinkedIn, not beside it
The Chrome extension works on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator and Recruiter. Capture a profile, find the verified email and mobile, see the match score against your live jobs and drop them straight into a sequence — without a second tab or a copy-paste.
Let the AI do the first read
Every candidate arrives with a relevancy score against the job, a written brief pulled from their CV and a scorecard you can have filled in before you dial. You spend your calls on the shortlist rather than making one.
Send something that looks like an agency
A branded CV generated from your own template, or a blind one with the company, dates and institutions redacted. Watermarked with your logo, sent as a spec, and tracked so you know whether it was opened.
Let the follow-ups happen without you
Drip sequences across email, SMS and WhatsApp, running while you are on a call. Automation rules move candidates, tag them and send the update the moment a stage changes.
Have a front door
Your own careers site with your branding, a client portal where a hiring manager reviews your shortlist, and a candidate portal so people update their own details instead of emailing you a new CV.
Bill it in the same system
The placement, the fee stages, the invoice pushed to Xero or QuickBooks. Nothing is re-keyed at month end because nothing left the record it started on.
The unfair advantage
A resourcer that lives in your browser
The extension is not a bookmarklet. It is twelve views inside LinkedIn — profile capture, enrichment, matching, sequencing and your own team's history with that person — so the sourcing half of the job happens while you are already reading the profile.
Questions this desk asks
Is this too much system for one person?
You see the modules you switch on. A solo desk usually runs Candidates, Jobs, Contacts, Companies and Marketing and leaves the rest off until it is needed — the settings let you disable whole modules, so the sidebar stays as short as your business is.
How long before it is usable?
Import a spreadsheet or a LinkedIn connections export, bulk-parse a folder of CVs, and the database builds itself from what you already have. Most solo recruiters are placing out of it within the first week.
What does it cost to start?
The free plan carries 1,000 candidates, 200 contacts and 5 jobs with no card. Solo is the paid tier built for one person. If your agency is under three years old you are also likely eligible for the startup programme.
What happens when I hire my first recruiter?
You add a seat. Nothing migrates, nothing re-imports, and the access model means you decide what the new person can see. The system was already built for a team — you were just the only one in it.
Compete on judgement, not on hours
The parts of the job that scale with headcount — sourcing, chasing, formatting, reporting — are the parts Recruitly takes. Free plan, no card, and the startup programme if the agency is new.