What's Your Top Biller Not Telling You?
March 19, 2026
If you walk into any recruitment tech conference today, you’ll see the usual suspects: CRMs, sourcing platforms, AI tools, and phone providers like us at Devyce.
But look closer at the companies not in the room. The companies like Jack and Jill, Juicebox, or Welcome to the Jungle. Some of these players are being valued at nearly a billion dollars. Why? Because their investors aren't betting on them helping you do your job better.
They are betting that they can replace you entirely.
At a recent industry talk, Ed (our CTO) and Amirah (our Head of Account Management) sat down to pull back the curtain on why the industry narrative is fundamentally broken. Here is the reality check every recruitment leader needs to hear.
Three Uncomfortable Truths
Before we talk about growth, we have to talk about survival. There are three truths that the industry is currently trying to ignore:
- Your biggest competitor isn’t the firm across the street. It’s the companies betting that the recruitment industry shouldn’t exist at all.
- Technology alone will not save your business. If it did, buying software would be a strategy. It isn’t.
- The disruptors are half right. Wait, half right? Let’s look at why.
The View from the Middle
At Devyce, we occupy a unique space. We provide phone systems for recruitment firms, which means we sit in the middle of hundreds of thousands of recruiter conversations every single day.
We don't look at individual candidate data; we look at operational patterns. We see how high-performing teams actually work. And when you look at that much volume, one thing becomes crystal clear:
The difference between an average recruiter and a top biller isn’t their database, their tools, or even their activity levels. It’s how they manage conversations and relationships over time.
Amirah, who transitioned from teaching into account management, points out that recruitment—much like teaching—is about understanding intent and motivation. Those aren't things you find in a CSV file.
If "Matching" was the Value, You’d Already Be Gone
Let’s be honest: if recruitment was just about matching a CV to a job description, recruiters would have been obsolete in 2004.
We’ve had massive databases for 20 years. We’ve had LinkedIn for almost as long. We’ve had job boards since the dawn of the internet. If the "value add" was simply finding a person who fits a list of requirements, the industry would have disappeared a decade ago.
But it didn’t. Why? Because recruitment isn't a matching problem. It is a:
- Timing Problem: Knowing when a candidate is ready to jump before they even know it.
- Trust Problem: Being the person a client calls when they have a problem they can't post on a job board.
- Context Problem: Understanding the nuances of company culture that a JD can't capture.
These things don't live in databases. They live in conversations.
The AI Reality Check
We shouldn't dismiss AI. AI agents are going to change the industry, and frankly, they should automate parts of it. Admin, coordination, and basic sourcing are tasks that take you away from what you actually signed up to do.
But here is the real risk: AI is getting very good at replicating what an average recruiter does.
If your daily value is formatting CVs and updating CRM fields, you are competing with a machine that is faster, cheaper, and doesn't need to sleep. The "disruptors" are right that the average recruiter is replaceable.
However, they can't touch what a top biller does. A top biller isn't a data-entry clerk; they are a consultant, a negotiator, and a relationship architect.
The Bottom Line
Technology is a tool, not a strategy. The goal shouldn't be to find the "magic" AI that does the work for you. The goal should be to use technology to clear the decks so you can get back to the only thing that actually secures your future in this industry: The Conversation.
