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Key Takeaways From This Post
In this episode of The Recruitment Marketing and Sales Podcast, Sharon Newey explores why imposter syndrome disproportionately affects the most capable recruitment business owners, what it actually costs commercially, and three practical actions you can take this week to start showing up with the authority you have already earned.
You are on a call with a client you have worked with for a while. Good relationship. The conversation is going well.
And then, almost as an aside, they say: “We had a really useful piece come through this week from another agency. A benchmarking report on salaries in our sector. Really timely.”
They are not threatening to leave. They are not complaining. It is a throwaway comment.
But something shifts.
Because you know that topic. You have lived it. You have had the exact same conversation about salary expectations with four clients this month. You know what is happening in that market, why it is happening, and what businesses should be doing about it. You could have written that report. You should have written that report.
But you did not. And someone else did. And now your client is talking about them on a call with you.
That feeling is not a content problem. It is not a time problem.
It is imposter syndrome. And it is costing your business more than you realise.
The Statistic That Changes how you see This
Research suggests that up to 85% of high-achieving professionals experience imposter syndrome at some point in their careers. Eighty-five per cent.
That is not a niche phenomenon. That is not something that happens to people who lack confidence or ability. That is a pattern that affects the majority of people who are genuinely very good at what they do.
Imposter syndrome is not evidence that you are not ready. It is frequently a signal that you are more capable than you give yourself credit for. The doubt is not a warning sign. It is a side effect of expertise.
What Imposter Syndrome Actually Looks Like in Recruitment
In a recruitment business, imposter syndrome rarely announces itself as imposter syndrome. It disguises itself as something far more practical.
It looks like waiting until the website is ready. You know the marketing needs to happen. But the website is not quite right, so you will start once that is sorted. The website gets sorted. Then it is something else.
It looks like not posting because it is not good enough. You draft something, read it back, and think: this is obvious. Everyone in my sector already knows this. So you delete it, and nothing goes out.
It looks like avoiding video, permanently. You know video works. You have seen the data. But something about pressing record feels impossible, so the video conversation gets shelved for another quarter.
It looks like undercharging and struggling to defend your fees. When you do not fully believe in your own authority, you drop your rate before the client has even pushed back. You discount as a reflex, not as a strategy.
And it looks like watching competitors win work you know you could do better. They are not better than you. They are simply louder. They are showing up. They are saying the things you are thinking.
Recognise any of that? Most recruitment directors and founders will recognise at least three of those patterns immediately. And they will have filed them under time, or priorities, or just not my thing.
But that is not really what they are.
Why High-Achievers are Most at Risk
The people most susceptible to imposter syndrome are not the least competent. It is the opposite. The more expert you become, the more likely you are to experience it. And there is a name for this: the paradox of competence.
When you are a junior recruiter, you know what you do not know. The gaps are visible and that feels appropriate. But as you become genuinely expert, your awareness of the field’s complexity increases at the same rate as your knowledge. You can see further. Which means you can also see further ahead of where you currently are.
You know more, and so you are more aware of the things you do not yet know. And that awareness can feel, incorrectly, like inadequacy.
There is a specific version of this that we see consistently. Many of our clients built their career inside a corporate agency. They were brilliant at what they did, and the brand gave them a platform. Candidates and clients trusted them, but some of that trust was borrowed from the institution.
And then they went out on their own. Courageous, commercially smart. But it came with a hidden tax. Because now the brand is them. The credibility is theirs to build, not to borrow. And a voice surfaces that says: was it ever really me?
The answer is yes. Thirty years of sector expertise does not evaporate when you hand back a corporate email address. But the voice does not always believe that, and the voice is loud.
The Commercial Cost you are not Counting
Imposter syndrome is not just an internal discomfort. It has a real, measurable commercial cost. And most recruitment business owners have not fully calculated it.
The first cost is visibility. When you are not showing up consistently, not posting, not putting your expertise into the public domain, you are invisible to people who are actively looking for someone exactly like you. Your ideal client is on LinkedIn right now, forming opinions about who they trust. If you are not there, you are not in the conversation.
Visible competitors win the work you should be winning. Not because they are better. Because they are present, and you are not.
The second cost is fee pressure. Authority and pricing power are directly linked. When a client already knows who you are, has read your posts, has seen that you understand their market in a way that other recruiters do not, the fee conversation starts from a completely different position. They have already bought your expertise before you pick up the phone.
When you are invisible, you are just another recruiter. And just another recruiter competes on price.
We saw this play out clearly with a client who had close to thirty years in her sector. Before she started showing up consistently, she was competing on contingency terms like everyone else. Within months of building a visible presence, she was having completely different conversations. Fee negotiations became almost secondary, because clients had already bought into her expertise before terms were discussed. She went on to secure her first ever retained projects after decades of contingency work.
The third cost is referrals. Referrals are generated not just by the quality of your work but by how front of mind you are. If your network has not heard from you in six months, they will refer someone else. Not because your work was not good. Because the other person was more visible at the moment the referral conversation happened.
Three Things You Can do This Week
These are low-risk, practical actions that genuinely move the needle.
Post one piece of content about what you know, not who you are. The best content from a recruitment leader is about the market. What are you seeing in your sector right now? What are clients getting wrong? What do candidates need to understand about the current hiring picture? That is expertise sharing, not self-promotion. Start there. One post. This week.
Share a client or candidate outcome. Not a polished case study. Just a moment. “We helped a client hire a head of finance last month, and here is what made the difference in the search.” Two paragraphs. It demonstrates your expertise and is built entirely from something that already happened. You are not inventing content. You are making your existing work visible.
Say the thing you think is too obvious to say. Your market hears these things all the time and still makes the same mistakes. Obvious to you is not obvious to them. The insight that feels like basic knowledge inside your industry is exactly what your ideal client is waiting to read. Say it.
None of these require a content strategy, a copywriter, or a professional photoshoot. They require you to decide that your knowledge is worth sharing. That is the only prerequisite.
Something to Sit With
Before you move on, one question worth sitting with honestly.
What is the one thing you know you should be saying publicly that you have been holding back?
And what is the real reason? Not the practical reason. Not the time, or the website, or the platform. The real reason.
In thirty years of coaching, I have rarely met a business owner who lacked something worth saying. What I have met, time and again, are people who had everything they needed and were waiting for permission that was never going to come from anywhere external.
You already have the expertise. You have earned it. The only question is whether you are going to let it stay invisible.
Thanks,
Sharon
How We Can Help
Working on your marketing consistently is one of the most important things you can do for the long-term health of your recruitment business. Visibility builds authority. Authority builds better fee conversations. And better fee conversations build the kind of business you actually want to run.
We have just updated our Superfast Circle programme with new resources and support designed specifically for recruitment business owners who are ready to show up consistently and with confidence. If you would like the full details, email us at [email protected] and we will send everything across.
