Does a subscription replace our HR team?

No. It supplies search and screening capacity. Employer brand, onboarding and people operations stay in-house.

How many roles can one internal recruiter handle?

It depends on role difficulty and how much coordination they absorb, but concurrency is the binding constraint long before skill is.

Then the useful question is what to take off their plate — usually sourcing breadth and first-pass screening.

Yes, provided you keep the pipeline and evidence. Ownership of the data is what makes switching cheap.

ComparisonsUpdated 10 February 20263 min read

One recruiter gives you ownership and context. A subscription gives you elastic capacity. The tie-breaker is usually concurrency and continuity.

Written for: Founders and HR leads sizing their first recruiting capability

	Internal recruiter	Subscription
Cost shape	Salary, benefits, tooling, ramp	Fixed subscription
Ramp time	Weeks to learn the business	Days, but needs your calibration
Concurrency	Limited by one person's hours	Banded by tier
Continuity risk	Holiday, sickness, resignation	Spread across a team and system
Context depth	Highest — sits with the team	Requires deliberate briefing

Sourcing tools, job board slots and an ATS licence are rarely in the salary comparison
A recruiter with ten open roles becomes a coordinator, not a sourcer
When they leave, undocumented pipeline leaves with them

1
Count concurrent roles
Consistently five or more open at once favours added capacity.
2
Check the hiring calendar
Spiky, seasonal hiring favours subscription elasticity.
3
Check the specialism
Deep niche sourcing needs channel reach more than headcount.
4
Decide who owns the bar
Whichever model you pick, the bar stays yours.

The combination most teams land on

One internal owner for the bar, candidate experience and stakeholder management — plus external capacity for sourcing and screening volume.

Does a subscription replace our HR team?: No. It supplies search and screening capacity. Employer brand, onboarding and people operations stay in-house.
How many roles can one internal recruiter handle?: It depends on role difficulty and how much coordination they absorb, but concurrency is the binding constraint long before skill is.
What if we already have a recruiter?: Then the useful question is what to take off their plate — usually sourcing breadth and first-pass screening.
Can we switch later?: Yes, provided you keep the pipeline and evidence. Ownership of the data is what makes switching cheap.

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