Episode
Season 9 | Ep26 Jon Woolley: How a Solo Recruiter Billed $1M in Two Years from Home
- Published
- Apr 14, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3712
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Summary
Jon Woolley spent nearly a decade at Vantage Consulting. He opened their US arm, built a team of eight, and scaled it to $1.6 million. Then, three weeks before his third child was born, he walked away. No team. No clients. No pipeline. Just £30,000 in savings and a niche most recruiters have never heard of: industrial automation. The people who programme the machines that make the stuff, from pharmaceuticals to Amazon warehouses. Average fees of $20,000 to $22,000 a placement. Year one at Candid Talent he billed £112,000. Year two, $500,000. And then Q1 of year three: over $350,000 in a single quarter. Solo. From a farmhouse in Staffordshire. Three kids under seven. 25 hours a week. Almost all inbound from LinkedIn. "Honestly, it's wild. Compared to the stress of year one... coming into year three with that kind of quarter. It's awesome." This week on The RAG Podcast, Jon breaks down how he went from employed recruiter to solo founder billing over $1 million in just two years, whilst being more present for his family than he ever was in agency life. We Cover: How Jon built a $1.6M US desk for someone else before going solo Why he left a senior role three weeks before his third child arrived The reality of year one: £112K billed, three months to land the first deal, and constant self-doubt How industrial automation recruitment works and why the fees are three times higher than UK averages Why almost all of his business now comes inbound through LinkedIn The lifestyle model: 25 hours a week, from home, present for school runs and gymnastics How he plans to grow from solo to six to ten people without an office Why he invested £30K in The Boardroom two years into building his agency Jon Woolley is not running a massive agency. He's not chasing headcount or office space or…