From Zero Experience to $1M Biller by 25

From Zero Experience to $1M Biller by 25

When Kent Depwe graduated college in 2019, he had zero recruiting experience and “hardly knew what [recruiting] was”. Fast forward a few years: by his second full year in the business, Kent was billing over $1,000,000 annually at just 25 years old. (Yes, you read that right – a seven-figure producer before his mid-20s.) Kent’s meteoric rise is not a fantasy or fluke, but the result of specific mindsets and daily habits. In a recent Elite Recruiter Podcast episode, he broke down how he went from a clueless rookie to a 3X million-dollar biller – and how he’s kept his billing at that level consistently. This post distills Kent’s journey into a recruiting success story and a practical mindset playbook for anyone looking to level up their desk.

Finish The Year Strong: https://finish-strong-2025.heysummit.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-rookie-to-%241m-recruiter-by-25-kent-depwes-playbook/id1547241660?i=1000730966362 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6j33uoqKVrMgWWYMDVAgR7?si=Xs8WFwmIQSy09_hnyoIOQQ 

The “Stay Broke” Mentality – Never Get Comfortable

One of Kent’s core frameworks is acting as if he’s still broke and always has something to prove – no matter how big the commission check. In 2020 (his first full year), Kent earned about $50–60K, and the very next year he rocketed to ~$350K take-home (just over $1M in billings). That kind of overnight lifestyle change might have made many young recruiters slow down or get complacent. Not Kent. “Once you get a good taste of success, it’s quite addicting…once you get to that level and raise your standards, it’s really hard to go backwards,” he says. Instead of coasting, Kent refused to settle. He treated his new success as a baseline to build on, not a finish line.

“If I wanted to get rich quick, I had to do the slow, boring work.” – Kent Depwe (on the power of patience and consistency in a “get-rich-quick” world)

Staying hungry in Kent’s case also meant being willing to make bold moves for long-term gain. After hitting back-to-back $1M years at his first firm, he shocked everyone by leaving to start essentially his own desk at a new platform. Why? He saw an opportunity to double his commission rate (from ~30–40% payout to 80% payout) – effectively doubling his income potential overnight by finding a more leveraged vehicle. This “stay broke” mindset – always pushing for more rather than getting comfortable – is a huge factor in Kent’s success. He raises the bar on himself with each win. As he puts it, once you’ve been #1, “you can’t settle for anything less”.

Mindset of a Champion: Consistency, Positivity, and Grit

Kent will be the first to tell you that fancy tactics mean nothing without the right mindset. Recruiting is an emotional rollercoaster, and he credits mental resilience as a key differentiator between those who flame out and those who thrive. His approach is simple but not easy: show up and do the work every single day, especially when things go wrong. If a deal falls through or a placement unravels, Kent doesn’t mope – he doubles down and works even harder to make up for it. That ability to push through adversity breaks the typical downward spiral and keeps momentum on his side.

Another habit Kent swears by is writing down his goals and keeping them visible. Early in his career, he scribbled down his targets and stuck them in front of his desk – and soon noticed he was actually hitting them. Call it manifestation or just focused intention, but Kent is now a believer. “It’s scary how the universe works sometimes,” he says of that experiment. By reinforcing his “why” and visualizing success daily, he keeps his mindset positive and future-focused.

Crucially, Kent approaches each day with confidence and a winner’s self-talk. Even before he had big results, he decided to believe he was the best in the business – and act accordingly. That positive self-belief became a self-fulfilling prophecy. When impostor syndrome crept in early on, he beat it back by reminding himself that he earned his seat at the table through hard work. In his words, he truly believed he was meant to be successful long before it actually happened, and that mentality helped him manifest the outcomes he wanted. It’s a classic case of “positive thoughts lead to positive outcomes,” and Kent lives it.

Most importantly, Kent preaches the gospel of consistency. There’s nothing flashy about how he became a million-dollar producer – it was all about grinding out the “unsexy” tasks day after day. “If someone else has found a way to bill a million doing 40 hours a week, let me know – I haven’t,” Kent jokes. For him, putting in the extra hours was the price of admission to the top-producer club. In fact, he notes that the difference between working 40 hours vs. 60 hours a week isn’t just 50% more effort – it can be the difference between being a $300K biller and a $1M biller, thanks to exponential returns on those extra hours. He’s not wrong: very few people are willing to consistently put in 12-hour days, which is exactly why very few ever reach Kent’s level of success.

“If I was working 40 hours a week, I would not even be remotely close to the success I have now.” – Kent Depwe

Finding Leverage: Work Smarter (Not Just Harder)

While Kent absolutely grinds, he’s also strategic about where to direct that effort. A major inflection point in his billing came from finding leverage in his business development and client strategy. Early on, he admits he would take any client he could get – but he learned that not all business is good business. In 2023, starting over at a new firm with a “blank desk,” Kent went on a client acquisition spree – signing roughly 40 new client agreements in a year. But he wasn’t looking to service all 40; he was quickly weeding out the duds. “The worst thing you can do is spend time on a client that’s never going to hire,” Kent says. His strategy was to churn through prospects fast, filtering for the 3–5 golden clients that were urgent, committed, and willing to pay well. By early 2024, he had identified about four “A-tier” clients that were hiring like crazy, moving fast, and valuing his service – and those few drove the bulk of his revenue explosion.

This is a brilliant lesson in leverage: 80% of your results often come from 20% (or in his case, 10%) of your clients. Kent’s leap from ~$15K months to consistently $80K+ months in billings came when he stopped trying to be everything to everyone and doubled down on the best opportunities. He focused on clients that valued speed and quality (e.g. venture-backed hypergrowth startups) and made multiple placements at each one, rather than one-and-done deals. In his niche of tech startups, he might place the CTO, then the VP Engineering, then the first 5 engineers, then the Head of Sales, and so on – “I don’t just fill roles, I build entire companies,” as Kent likes to say. By being a generalist within his niche (able to fill any role a growing startup needs), he unlocked far more revenue per client than if he had pigeonholed himself into only one function.

Kent also found leverage in business development tactics. He realized cold-calling for new clients, while sometimes necessary, offers low “time leverage” – you might burn half a day dialing and only land one meeting. So he adopted a two-pronged approach: targeted outreach for high-value prospects (a sniper rifle) and automated email campaigns for wider reach (a wide net). For example, Kent will still pick up the phone for a perfect-fit potential client he’s researched, but he lets technology do a lot of heavy lifting in the background – drumming up leads via personalized email sequences and even by marketing standout candidates (NPCs) into the inboxes of hiring managers. This way, he often has interested clients coming to him (“you hit my inbox at the exact right time, let’s talk”). It’s all about scaling his BD efforts without sacrificing too much time that could be spent filling roles. High leverage, high ROI.

And let’s not forget referrals, the ultimate leverage. Roughly half of Kent’s new business comes inbound from happy clients. His “secret” to getting referrals is no secret at all: do an amazing job. Impress the client with speed and quality – send them only top-tier candidates and quick results – and they’ll gladly introduce you to other hiring managers in their network. Kent recounts how after he filled roles for one client, he’d often get an unsolicited text a month later: “Hey, you did a great job for my friend at XYZ company – they’re hiring, can I connect you?”. Every placement done with excellence became a springboard to more business, with essentially zero extra effort on his part. That is the power of leverage.

Systems vs. Chaos: Building Structure as You Scale

Interestingly, despite his tremendous success, Kent doesn’t pretend to have a hyper-structured, perfectly planned schedule each day. In fact, he laughs at the idea of rigid time-blocking for recruiters: “By 10am, any plan for the day is completely destroyed,” he says, due to the chaos of calls, emails, and fires that constantly pop up. From 9 to 5, Kent is in the thick of it – reacting to what’s urgent (client calls, candidate issues, new reqs, etc.) and pushing each deal forward. He doesn’t beat himself up for being in reactive mode during business hours; as long as he’s addressing high-priority tasks, he’s moving the needle. His only hard rule is to carve out time later in the evening (when things quiet down) to do proactive work like sourcing and LinkedIn outreach. “My structured time is after hours – from 5pm to 9 or even 10pm – that’s when I send my LinkedIn messages and research,” Kent shares. This approach allows him to juggle the daytime chaos while still executing on the high-value activities that require focus.

That said, Kent recognizes that scaling fast can feel like organized chaos, and he’s continually working on adding more systems to sustain his growth. He’s now implementing better processes for things like candidate pipeline management and client updates – the behind-the-scenes structure that can make a one-man desk operate more like a well-oiled machine. The key is that he didn’t wait for perfect systems to take action. Kent hit the gas when opportunity arose, even if it meant some messy days, and is only now backfilling with more structure. Progress over perfection. If you’re a recruiter in “hyper-growth” mode wearing many hats, Kent’s example shows that it’s okay to run a bit hot and chaotic as long as you deliver – just be sure to gradually introduce systems to prevent burnout and keep quality high.

Key Takeaways from Kent’s Playbook

• Hungry > Comfortable: Treat every big win as a new baseline, not an excuse to coast. Kent scaled from $60K to $350K to $1M+ in rapid succession by continually acting like a broke beginner who still has everything to prove. The moment success made him “comfortable,” he intentionally raised the stakes – even switching companies to chase a higher upside. Never let success sedate you.

• Mindset is Everything: Develop unshakeable self-belief and resilience. Kent decided early that he belongs at the top, and he primes his mind daily by reviewing goals and staying positive. When setbacks happen (and they will), channel that frustration into more action, not self-pity. In this rollercoaster of a profession, mental toughness is a superpower.

• Master the Basics, Every Day: There’s no secret shortcut – it’s about consistent, diligent work on the fundamental tasks (calls, outreach, follow-ups, etc.). Kent’s motto of “do the boring work” really means grinding out high-quality activity day after day. The boring stuff is the stuff that makes you rich. Consistency builds momentum, confidence, and a pipeline that others simply won’t have because they gave up too soon.

• Find Your Leverage Points: Identify where to focus your time for maximum yield. Which clients have the most hiring needs and value your partnership? Which recruiting activities can be automated or scaled? Kent invests his energy where it counts – nurturing core clients, leveraging tech for outreach, and asking for (or earning) referrals so new business comes to him. Work smarter by amplifying what works best, rather than brute-forcing everything equally.

• Embrace the Chaos (with a Side of Structure): Don’t over-engineer your day with rigid schedules that will collapse in a recruiter’s reality. Instead, prioritize ruthlessly and get comfortable pivoting on the fly. Handle the fires and urgent needs immediately, then block out quieter time for strategic work (sourcing, planning, learning). As you grow, gradually introduce tools or processes to organize the madness – but understand that in recruiting, some chaos is normal (and even productive) when you’re juggling multiple deals.

Conclusion: One Recruiter’s Success Can Be Yours

Kent Depwe’s story is as motivational as it is instructive. It proves that you don’t need decades of experience to achieve extraordinary success in recruiting – you need the right mindsets, relentless consistency, and a willingness to capitalize on opportunity. Kent likes to say that “really, all it takes is one really good client to change your life.” He’s living proof: one breakthrough client in 2021 sent his billings into the stratosphere (he literally credits that client with “buying [his] house”!). How many potential “life-changing” clients or candidates might be just around the corner for you? Kent believes many recruiters are far closer than they realize to massive success – “you’re really just one away”, as he puts it. The caveat: you’ll only find that “one” if you keep going and doing the work.

In Kent’s case, the formula was simple: dream big, work hard, stay positive, and never stop learning. That’s a formula any recruiter can apply starting today. If a 25-year-old can build a million-dollar desk in two years by mastering the basics, imagine what you can do in the next two months by adopting some of these principles.

“Finish strong” isn’t just a saying for Kent – it’s how he operates daily. Now it’s your turn.

🔥 Ready to level up? Hear Kent Depwe’s full story and strategies in his episode on The Elite Recruiter Podcast (it’s a must-listen for anyone who wants to replicate his success). And if you’re feeling inspired to up your game, don’t miss the Finish The Year Strong 2025 Summit – it kicks off next week and is jam-packed with top billers (like Kent) sharing playbooks to help you crush Q4. It’s the perfect chance to turn inspiration into action as we sprint toward the end of the year. Let’s finish 2025 strong – and set ourselves up to make 2026 the best year yet! 🚀

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