PE-Backed Companies: Avoid the $500K Recruiting Mistake

You can invest half a million dollars a year in recruiting and still miss your goals. Or, you can spend a fraction of that, reduce your time-to-fill to 30 days, and make even better hires. One PE-backed cybersecurity company discovered a more efficient approach, and the results speak for themselves. Here's what changed, why it worked, and how you can replicate it - without overstretching your budget or team.

Why Recruiting Costs Can Add Up

Traditional recruiting models often involve fees of 20–30% of a hire's first-year salary. For many organizations, that can quickly become a significant expense. A more sustainable approach is to pay for time and expertise, not commission. Hourly, embedded recruiting offers three key advantages:

• Predictable, budget-friendly costs
• A recruiter who is fully engaged in the work, acting as a true partner
• Faster, more accurate hiring, as the recruiter becomes an extension of your team

A New Model for a Growing Company

This PE-backed cybersecurity startup found itself spending $500,000 annually on recruiting through several agencies, with results that didn't always meet expectations. Their previous internal approach focused on coordinating with vendors, but didn't always deliver the strategic value they needed.

A new CHRO wanted a different path. She brought in IQTalent's embedded recruiting model, which offered:

• A part-time recruiter at $100 per hour (~$108,000 annually)
• Flexible support that could scale with hiring demand
• Seamless integration with the company's systems and hiring practices
• Transparent data and performance metrics accessible to all stakeholders

Given the company's private equity ownership and emphasis on diversity and talent strategy, measurable outcomes and cost-effectiveness were a requirement.

Improving Speed and Quality Together

Quick hiring isn't valuable if quality suffers, and slow hiring can hold your business back. In this case, both speed and quality improved:

• Average 30-day time-to-fill for sales and technical roles
• Specialized searches guided by clear calibration, not guesswork
• Success criteria co-developed with hiring managers before sourcing
• 27 quality hires across sales, infrastructure, and other key functions

The Playbook

• Calibrate each role with a simple, repeatable framework
• Map competitors and background patterns early in the search
• Track progress in a shared system to make tradeoffs visible
• Meet weekly with hiring managers to refine quality and fit

Strategic Partnership in Action

Many organizations struggle to define what "great" looks like in a candidate. When the CRO faced this challenge during a critical sales hiring push, Alise didn't just follow the standard playbook. She partnered with leadership to co-create a solution.

Together, they developed a simple evaluation framework that gave hiring leaders a common language and objective criteria for assessing candidates. This wasn't a one-size-fits-all template; it was a custom tool built specifically for their sales organization's needs.

The outcome? Consistent 30-day time-to-fill averages, even for the toughest searches, because Alise established calibration and alignment before recruiting started. This proactive approach of identifying potential roadblocks and solving them upfront became a hallmark of the partnership.

Before this collaborative approach:

• Preferences were often unclear or shifted with leadership changes
• Search processes took longer as teams clarified their needs
• Candidate evaluations could feel subjective and hard to compare

After establishing clear criteria:

• Consistent, repeatable evaluation for every candidate
• Faster pre-screening and clearer communication with executives
• Improved conversations, with specific strengths and opportunities identified for each candidate
• Stability - criteria remained consistent even as leadership evolved
• Transparent, data-driven decision-making

From Collaboration to Results

Alise didn't just present resumes; she mapped each candidate's strengths to the specific criteria that mattered most to leadership. This gave hiring teams a common language and a more objective way to discuss talent. Even for highly specialized technical roles, she worked with hiring managers to establish clear evaluation criteria upfront, supported by AI-driven insights when requirements were complex.

The outcome? The company consistently maintained a 30-day average time-to-fill, even for the toughest searches, because calibration began before recruiting started..

The Broader Lesson: Strategic Partnership, Not Just Recruiting

This collaborative approach to hiring criteria is just one example of how embedded recruiting becomes a strategic partnership. Alise worked closely with leadership to build scalable, repeatable talent systems tailored to the company's unique needs. She helped define the company's "athlete profile"—candidates with diverse skills and backgrounds who could excel in multiple contexts.

Being "embedded" meant full participation: using the company's systems, joining all-hands meetings, building genuine relationships with hiring managers, and adapting her approach as the company's needs evolved..

Making Diversity Part of the Process

For this company and its PE owner, diversity was a priority. By tracking and discussing diversity metrics transparently, it became a natural part of hiring conversations:

• 40% of hires came from underrepresented backgrounds
• Diversity was integrated into regular hiring discussions
• Metrics were visible and standard, supporting ongoing progress

When diversity is tracked alongside other key metrics, it becomes a standard part of the process rather than a separate initiative.

The PE Advantage

PE-backed companies need recruiting models that can scale without requiring a full in-house team at every portfolio company. The hourly, on-demand recruiting model offers:

• Flexible hours that adjust with hiring needs
• A trusted recruiting advisor who can support benchmarking, audits, and research
• Complete ownership of candidate data and hiring insights

Maintaining a consistent baseline of hours allowed for steady progress and strong relationships, while still allowing flexibility for urgent needs.

Outcomes That Matter

Financial Impact:

• 78% reduction in annual recruiting costs (from $500K/year to ~$108K/year)
• Cost per hire: $6,229 vs. $25,000+ with commission-based agencies
• Transparent hourly billing with no surprises

Hiring Performance:

• 27 hires across key business areas
• Maintained a ~30-day average time-to-fill
• Successfully filled highly specialized positions

Strategic Impact:

• Trusted HR advisor beyond recruiting - salary benchmarking, audits, leadership development research
• Consistent part-time support delivered full-time impact
• Embedded recruiter became a valued member of the HR and leadership teams

Culture & Hiring Manager Satisfaction:

• 40% diversity representation among hires
• Positive, collaborative relationships with all hiring managers

What Made the Difference

Embedded, Not Transactional
Alise became part of the team, participating in strategic discussions and supporting broader talent planning.

Proactive Problem Solving
Alise identified potential hiring challenges before they became bottlenecks, creating custom solutions like evaluation criteria and search strategies tailored to each role.

Flexible, Yet Consistent
Adjusting hours with demand, while maintaining a steady baseline, provided both agility and stability.

Relationship Focused
Strong partnerships with the CHRO and hiring managers created trust and collaboration.

Beyond Recruiting: A Strategic Advisory Role

As the relationship grew, Alise's role expanded to include salary benchmarking, HR audits, training research, and strategic support during organizational transitions. Her consistent presence allowed her to contribute to broader HR initiatives beyond recruiting.

7 Questions to Guide Your Next Recruiting Decision

1. Are we paying for time or outcome commissions?
2. Will we retain all candidate profiles and search notes?
3. How will we track and share time-to-fill and diversity metrics?
4. What is our process for calibrating searches in the first 30 days?
5. How will our recruiter integrate into our systems?
6. What is our plan for scaling hours as needs change?
7. What is our expected cost per hire compared to our current approach?

Try It Yourself

Choose one role, run a 30-day embedded recruiting sprint, and openly track the results: cost per hire, time-to-fill, and candidate quality. Compare the outcomes to your current model - you may discover a more efficient and effective approach.

IQTalent delivers on-demand recruiting, sourcing, and research with transparent hourly pricing. No commissions, no minimums, no surprises. You retain ownership of every candidate and every data point.

Ready to see how embedded recruiting could benefit your organization?

• Calculate your recruiting overspend: ROI Calculator
• Get a free talent audit call: Book Consultation
• Read the full case study: Download Here

Key Takeaways

• You don't need a large recruiting budget to hire well—you need an embedded partner and shared accountability.
• Pay for time, not commissions, to reduce cost per hire and increase accountability.
• If your recruiter can't explain your 30-day calibration plan, you may be missing key insights.
• Own your pipeline and your future—make sure your organization retains all hiring data.
• The secret to fast, high-quality hiring? Calibration and alignment before recruiting starts.

The Bottom Line

Hiring doesn't have to be a tradeoff between speed, quality, cost, and flexibility. A PE-backed cybersecurity firm reduced recruiting costs by 78%, maintained a 30-day time-to-fill, and improved diversity—all through an embedded recruiting partnership and transparent processes.

For PE-backed companies and fast-growing organizations, this model offers scalable, cost-effective, and high-quality recruiting—without the need for a full internal team.

Want the Full Story?

Download the full case study to see:

• Custom approaches to complex searches and collaborative problem-solving
• Month-by-month progress and results
• Real-world examples of specialized roles and solutions
• Lessons on flexibility, calibration, and embedded recruiting

Read the Case Study