The Elite Recruiter Podcast

Most recruiters think AI is coming for their job. Allie Milbrath thinks it's coming for one kind of recruiter — the one whose value was sending LinkedIn messages faster than the person next to them. If that was ever the whole game, she says you should be worried. If it wasn't, this episode is the way out. This is Part 1 of a two-part retained search masterclass. Allie Milbrath of the Quinn Roberts Company returns to The Elite Recruiter Podcast to walk through the shift she believes our industry needs most: moving from contingent to retained, and from transactional order-taker to trusted advisor. She has built her career entirely in retained search, and not by being the most aggressive salesperson in the room. She won it by delivering so well that clients simply stopped shopping. That distinction is the spine of this conversation. The part that will stay with you is what Allie calls "emotional exits." Contingent recruiting, she argues, quietly trains you to bail. When a search gets hard, you have fifteen others on your desk to retreat to. When a client is difficult, you move on. When the market turns, you move on again. Over time it compounds, and you lose the ability to operate from any real depth. Retained takes the exit away. It forces you to stay in the discomfort long enough to actually solve the problem — and that, more than any script or pricing model, is the real mindset shift she thinks recruiters are afraid of. They are not afraid of the work. They are afraid of commitment. Benjamin and Allie also get honest about who retained is not for, why "the fear holding you back" and "a market that genuinely can't bear retained" are two different things, and how AI is quietly closing the escape hatch on transactional recruiting. Then they move into the mechanics — fee structures, guarantees, fall-off and cancellation terms, off-limits clauses, and the protective language Allie now writes into every agreement after learning the hard way. Part 1 ends mid-mechanics. Part 2 drops tomorrow and finishes the masterclass: pipelining projects, the real math on how many searches one recruiter can carry, and why she believes great delivery is your best business development. If you take one thing from this episode, let it be the question Benjamin opens with. As AI gets better, you have to figure out why clients will still pay you. What part of your process actually adds value? You don't have to go fully retained to answer that. But you do have to answer it. What You'll Learn: Why panicking about AI is the wrong response, and the harder question to ask yourself instead What "emotional exits" are, and how contingent work quietly trains you to bail Why clients return again and again to an advisor, not an attack dog How to tell the difference between fear that's holding you back and a market that can't support retained Who retained search is genuinely not the right fit for The contract terms that actually protect you: guarantees, fall-off, cancellation, and off-limits language This episode is brought to you by Atlas, the AI-first recruitment platform built to eliminate admin. Atlas captures every candidate conversation automatically and turns it into something you can use, so the details that usually get buried in notes are searchable in seconds. Atlas customers have reported over 40% EBITDA growth and over 80% increase in monthly billings after adopting the platform. Get started and unlock your exclusive listener offer at recruitwithatlas.com. Connect with Allie Milbrath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alliemilbrath/ Part 2 drops tomorrow — make sure you're following so you don't miss it. Join the Elite Recruiter Community: https://elite-recruiters.circle.so/checkout/elite-recruiter-community Register free for the AI Recruiting Summit 2026: https://ai-recruiting-summit-2026.heysummit.com/ Get the newsletter: https://eliterecruiterpodcast.beehiiv.com/subscribe

She runs a three-person team. She places 7 to 12 people a month. She charges 18% of annual salary — right in line with the market. And somehow she's the preferred childcare provider for the LA Rams, the LA Chargers, and a meaningful slice of the Forbes 400. There's no SDR. There are no paid ads. She's not on LinkedIn. Every deal is referred or inbound. After 20 years. Rebecca Stewart is the founder of VIP Nannies. What she's built in high-end household staffing is the relationship-driven, niche-locked business most agency owners say they want and almost none actually build. This episode is how she got there — and what she'd tell a recruiter sitting in the wrong niche, or no niche at all. This episode is brought to you by Atlas — the AI-first recruitment platform that captures every candidate conversation and makes it searchable. Atlas customers report 40%+ EBITDA growth and 80%+ billings increase. Unlock your listener offer at recruitwithatlas.com The AI Recruiting Summit 2026 is back July 13-20. Free live sessions with recruiting engineers, operators, and tool-builders showing what's actually working. Register at https://ai-recruiting-summit-2026.heysummit.com/ Rebecca didn't plan this. Small California town, college basketball, Cal State Fullerton, then three months in the Peace Corps in Paraguay because her friends were getting master's degrees. She came home needing a job. A friend told her about a Bel Air nanny role. She interviewed. She was hired before she got home. She worked Friday through Monday for a year, then walked away because she wanted her weekends back. Inside a few weeks she'd researched every LA nanny agency, called her hometown bank for a loan, and started VIP Nannies at 23. The first family she met tried to hire her as their nanny. She declined and never sat down with a family again. Early on she chased anyone who could afford a nanny. Then she pulled up to a Beverly Hills Hotel event in her Honda Accord and realized she was at the wrong altitude. She read a marketing book, rewrote her pitch, raised her fees, and rebuilt the website. It took seven years for the pivot to fully show up. Today the business runs on relationships that compound for decades. The LA Rams reached out about childcare ten years ago after she sent a single congratulations message on LinkedIn — the only time she's used the platform. The Chargers came later. Most placements come from nannies calling her when a job ends. The episode pulls apart how — the fee structure that filters wrong clients, the $450 registration fee LA agencies wouldn't charge until she did, the six-month replacement guarantee, the nanny socials she runs to fight isolation. And the deeper thesis: there's a niche for everything. Find the one you'd run toward if nobody paid you, then learn to charge for it. If you're a recruiter stuck in a niche you fell into, this is the conversation that argues you can change that. What you'll learn: How a three-person team places 7 to 12 people a month with zero outboundThe Honda Accord moment that triggered Rebecca's seven-year pivot upmarketWhy a $450 registration fee filters better than any qualifying callThe single LinkedIn message that won the LA Rams account ten years agoHow to turn "do what you love" into a real business model in a recruiting nicheThe 12-minutes-for-12-days exercise Rebecca uses to find clarity on direction 🎯 Connect with Rebecca Stewart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vipnanniesla/ Website: https://www.vipnannyagency.com/ 📣 The AI Recruiting Summit 2026 — July 13-20, free https://ai-recruiting-summit-2026.heysummit.com/ 🤝 Join the Elite Recruiter Community https://elite-recruiters.circle.so/checkout/elite-recruiter-community 📧 Subscribe to the newsletter https://eliterecruiterpodcast.beehiiv.com/subscribe 💼 This episode is brought to you by Atlas https://recruitwithatlas.com