Two ways to put a recruiter inside your team
An internal recruiter is a full-time employee. You hire them, pay salary and benefits, buy their tools and manage their work.
An embedded recruiter does the same daily work, but comes through a partner. A Maverick joins your team, works in your applicant tracking system and process, attends your syncs and represents your company to candidates. Mavericks handles their hiring, management and support, and you pay a monthly cost for the capacity.
From a candidate’s point of view, the two can look the same. The differences show up in how quickly support starts, what it costs to change, and who carries the risk if the plan moves.
This is not an either-or choice for most growing companies. Many teams use both at different stages, or at the same time. The question is which one fits the next six to twelve months of your hiring plan.
When an internal recruiter makes sense
Hiring your own recruiter is the right call in a lot of cases. It makes sense when:
- Your hiring volume is steady and predictable for the year ahead.
- You want someone to own recruiting long-term and grow into a leadership role.
- Recruiting is a core part of how your company competes, and you want that skill on the payroll.
- You have time to run the search for a recruiter before hiring picks up.
An internal recruiter builds deep company knowledge over years. They shape culture, train hiring managers and become part of the leadership bench for Talent.
The trade-off is time and fixed cost. Hiring a strong recruiter is itself a search. And if the plan slows down, you still carry the salary, or you face a hard decision about the role.
When an embedded recruiter makes sense
An embedded recruiter fits when the need is real but its size or length is uncertain. Common reasons:
- You just raised and need to start hiring before you can build a Talent team. See recruiting after funding.
- Your recruiters are at capacity across active searches.
- A recruiter left or went on leave and searches cannot pause. See recruiter coverage.
- You need experience in a function your team does not recruit for often, such as AI/ML, data or finance.
Embedded recruiters are experienced, so they can start running searches without a long ramp. Mavericks has 50+ experienced recruiters and 6+ years of embedded recruiting across engineering, design, product, data, GTM, finance, people, G&A and executive leadership.
When the plan changes, you change the scope of the engagement instead of the size of your headcount.
How cost and commitment compare
The cost of an internal recruiter is more than salary. It includes benefits, recruiting tools, the time to hire them and the time they need to ramp. It is also a fixed commitment once they join.
An embedded recruiter is a monthly cost for dedicated capacity. We agree the scope, pricing and engagement terms before work begins, and you can adjust capacity as hiring speeds up or slows down.
A simple way to compare:
- Short or uncertain need: embedded is usually easier to start and to stop.
- Steady, long-term volume: an internal hire often makes more sense over time.
- Peaks on top of a steady base: keep your internal team and add embedded capacity for the peak.
If you are also weighing agencies, read the recruiting agency alternative. The per-hire fee model changes the math again.
Using both at the same time
Many teams with an internal recruiting function still bring in embedded support. The internal team owns the strategy, the employer brand and the most sensitive searches. Embedded recruiters add capacity on the roles that would otherwise wait.
The work can also be split by stage of the funnel. Embedded sourcing builds pipeline through market mapping, research, outbound messaging and screening, and hands qualified candidates to your recruiters. Embedded coordination takes interview scheduling and follow-ups off your recruiters’ plates.
Whatever the mix, embedded recruiters work in your systems, so candidate data and search history stay with you. You get a weekly recruiting update and weekly or bi-weekly syncs, so your Talent lead can see all the work in one place.
If you have no Talent team yet, read how to build a recruiting function.