What it is
A 360 recruiter, also called a full-desk or full-cycle recruiter, owns the entire recruitment lifecycle personally: winning the client relationship, sourcing and screening candidates, and carrying the process through to placement. The "360" or "full circle" image describes the loop from a client's first "we need to hire" to a candidate accepted and started, all handled by the same person rather than passed between specialists.
The model sits opposite the split desk, where business development and delivery are separate roles: a 180 recruiter (or account manager, BD consultant) wins and manages the client relationship, and a resourcer or delivery consultant sources and screens candidates against the brief. 360 recruitment is the norm at small-to-mid agencies and boutique desks; UK and Australian agencies tend to say "360 recruiter" or "360 desk", US agencies more often say "full-desk" or "full-cycle recruiter", though the role is the same.
A 360 recruiter's hardest trade-off isn't skill, it's attention: business development is the first thing to slip when delivery gets busy.
Why it matters
Running BD and delivery yourself changes the economics and the risk profile of a desk. Nothing gets lost in a handoff: the person who took the brief from the hiring manager is the same person interviewing candidates against it, so context never degrades between departments.
The cost is attention. A 360 recruiter has to prospect for new clients, keep existing accounts warm, source and screen candidates, and run a cadence of follow-ups, all in the same day. Business development is usually the first activity to get squeezed when a desk gets busy delivering live roles, which is exactly the moment a 360 recruiter most needs new business in the pipeline to avoid a feast-and-famine cycle.
How boilr handles it
boilr is built for exactly this shape of desk. Every 360 recruiter gets their own AI sales employee that runs the side of the job that competes hardest for attention: finding companies that match the desk's ICP, watching for buying signals, and drafting outreach, so the recruiter is never choosing between prospecting and delivering a live role.
Because the agent hands over a finished task to verify and send rather than working delivery for you, a 360 recruiter keeps full ownership of the relationship and the candidate process, the part of the job that actually needs their judgement, while the BD groundwork that used to compete for the same hours runs in the background. The desk's targeting knowledge sits in the Company Brain, so BD stays warm even in weeks when delivery takes over.
