EP336: How Intelligent Businesses are Winning in Recruitment - Darren Westall, Co-Founder, PaigerEP336: How Intelligent Businesses are Winning in Recruitment - Darren Westall, Co-Founder, Paiger
The Recruiter's Recruitment Podcast
The conversation between Lysha Holmes and Darren Westall centres on how AI, marketing and structured BD can help recruitment firms increase GP per recruiter. It touches on shifting away from headcount-led growth towards more strategic, human-focused ways of winning better work.
39:36•1 Sept 2026
How Smart Recruiters Win: BD, AI and GP Per Recruiter with Darren Westall
Episode Overview
- Use AI to boost efficiency and productivity, but keep human-led business development at the centre.
- Focus on GP per recruiter rather than headcount to make smarter hiring and investment decisions.
- Treat marketing as a key revenue driver, closely linked with daily BD activity.
- Maintain clear KPIs or minimum expectations, including for social selling, to understand what’s really working.
- Prioritise high-fit opportunities and early hiring signals to win better-quality, often retained, work.
“Please don't use AI to replace good quality BD. The phone is still very much king.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? Swap the bar for the boardroom in this fast-paced chat about how smart recruitment businesses are staying ahead in 2026 and beyond. This episode centres on the relationship between business development, marketing and AI, with a clear message running through everything: "Please don't use AI to replace good quality BD.
The phone is still very much king." You’ll hear Darren Westall, Co-Founder of Paiger, talk through his journey from becoming a CTO at 28 and feeling "bloody miserable" despite landing his dream job, to launching Paiger and working with nearly a thousand staffing companies. His competitive, goal-focused mindset will resonate with founders and recruiters who constantly chase the next challenge and want to boost GP per recruiter rather than just headcount.
The conversation breaks down why traditional "smile and dial" tactics feel outdated, and why structured BD hours and clear KPIs (or "minimum expectations") still matter. Darren and host Lysha Holmes talk about marketing as a core revenue driver, not a fluffy add-on, and how recruiters can blend AI tools with human skill to prioritise high-value jobs, spot hiring signals early and create targeted outreach that actually gets responses.
Darren walks through Paiger Intelligence in practical terms: ideal customer profiles, vacancy alerts, hiring signals, research tools, contact finding, and even video scripts that help recruiters become trusted voices on LinkedIn. There’s plenty here for founders rethinking tech stacks, consultants keen to sharpen their BD, and anyone wondering how to future-proof a recruitment business without losing the human touch.
If you’re asking how to do more high-quality BD in less time, without burning out your team or drowning them in data, this episode might spark some ideas and help you rethink what "winning" in recruitment should look like. How could smarter use of AI and clearer goals change the way your desk performs?
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