"
I keep hiring the wrong person.
Three months in and they're not who I interviewed. By the time I realise, I've already lost a quarter.
Belle Recruit partners with Australian small businesses to find, onboard and grow the right people — without the overhead of a hire-it-yourself recruiter or a corporate HR team.
The owners who reach out to Belle Recruit usually arrive saying something close to one of these. If you nod once, we should probably talk.
I keep hiring the wrong person.
Three months in and they're not who I interviewed. By the time I realise, I've already lost a quarter.
I don't have HR — but I have HR problems.
I'm the founder. I'm also the de-facto HR manager, and I'm not enjoying either job at the moment.
My new hire is floundering.
Day one came and went without a plan. Now it's week six and I'm not sure they know what success looks like.
I keep putting off the conversation.
There's a performance chat I've been avoiding for weeks. It's getting harder to have, not easier.
Agency fees are wild for one role.
Quoted 18% of first-year salary, and they still want me to write the brief. There has to be another way.
I don't have time to do this properly.
I'd love to write a great ad, run structured interviews, do reference checks — but the business doesn't pause for hiring.
These aren't business problems. They're people problems wearing a business disguise. That's the work we do.
Belle
Founder & Recruitment Consultant
I built Belle Recruit because small business owners shouldn't have to choose between hiring blind and paying agency fees that don't fit their budget. After years inside recruitment and people-ops — from local trades through to ASX-listed names — I noticed the same pattern: brilliant operators wearing the "HR hat" reluctantly, often badly, and always at the cost of the work they actually love.
So I do that part for you — sourcing the right candidates, walking new hires through induction, and being on the other end of the phone when a performance conversation needs to happen. It's senior-level people support, sized for businesses that aren't yet ready for a full-time team.
The clients who get the most out of working with me are owner-operators who care deeply about their people but have run out of hours in the day to do it justice. I'm not a faceless agency. I'm not selling resumes by the kilo. I'm one person, working with a small handful of businesses at any one time, and that's the way I plan to keep it.
"It really is all about your people. Get that right, and everything else gets easier."
Recruitment, talent acquisition & people operations across multiple sectors
Senior-level work, sized and priced for small business reality
Servicing all of Australia — remote-first, on the ground when needed
Available for short engagements, ongoing retainers, or one-off projects
Most options on the market are designed for one of two extremes: enterprise budgets or absolute DIY. Belle Recruit lives in the gap that suits small business reality.
No percentage of first-year salary. No quiet pressure to fill the role at any cost. You agree on a scope and a price up front, and I work to that — the same way I would if I were inside your business full-time.
The same level of thinking an in-house Head of People would bring — job design, scorecards, structured interviewing, induction frameworks, performance conversations — without the $150K base and recruitment costs to bring them in.
You won't end an engagement with a 60-page deck and a homework list. I do the actual work — writing the ad, screening the candidates, building the 90-day plan, sitting in on the difficult conversation. You get outcomes, not action items.
Each one stands alone, but most clients use two or three together — because finding the right person and then setting them up to succeed is the same project, not two.
Hands-on guidance on what you actually need to hire, when, and how to attract them. Job ads that read like a brand, scorecards that prevent gut hires, and structured interviews that get to the truth.
Read in detailActive search, shortlists you'd actually interview, and first-round screening so only the right people land on your calendar. From LinkedIn outreach to referral campaigns done properly.
Read in detailA 30/60/90 plan your new hire can follow on day one — built around your business, not a template. Documented processes, welcome sessions, and check-ins so retention starts before week two.
Read in detailThe conversations no one wants to have, run with care. Probation reviews, performance discussions, team retros — I sit in, structure them, and help everyone leave the room clearer.
Read in detailGet the hiring right before anyone applies.
Owners who are about to open a role and want to make sure they're hiring the right shape of person — not just whoever's available. Especially valuable for first-of-its-kind hires (your first manager, your first ops person, your first salesperson).
A hire plan you can actually run — by yourself, with me, or with someone else. No more advertising into the void and crossing your fingers.
A shortlist of people you actually want to meet.
Owners who don't have time to wade through 80 applicants from a Seek ad — or who need to find people who aren't actively looking but would say yes to the right approach. Also great if previous hiring rounds left you cold on the available talent.
Three to five interviews on your calendar — every one of them worth your time. The kind of shortlist that makes the choice hard for the right reasons.
Make their first 90 days the strongest of their tenure.
Owners who keep meaning to put a proper onboarding together but never quite get to it — and then watch new hires take six months to ramp up (or quietly leave in their probation period). Especially powerful for roles that didn't exist in your business before.
A new team member who knows what success looks like by week one, can demonstrate it by week eight, and is genuinely contributing by month three. And an onboarding asset you'll use again for the next hire.
The conversations no one looks forward to, run with care.
Owners who know a conversation needs to happen — a probation decision, a performance issue, a structural change, a team retro after a hard quarter — and want someone in the room who isn't emotionally invested in the outcome. Also a fit for any meeting where the dynamic has been off and the team needs a reset.
A conversation that actually moves things forward, with everyone clearer on the other side. And you don't have to be the one running it alone.
Whether it's a single conversation or a multi-month engagement, every project follows the same five beats. No surprises, no hidden steps.
A complimentary 30-minute Teams call. You walk me through the situation, I ask questions, and we figure out whether I'm the right fit. No pitch — if I'm not the right call, I'll say so and try to point you somewhere better.
Within 48 hours of our call you get a one-page scope: what we'd do, in what order, what's included, what isn't, what it costs. Fixed price. Nothing hourly, nothing variable. You'll know exactly what you're saying yes to.
We kick off properly — I learn your business, your team, your tone, your customers. The more I know about how you work, the better the work I do for you. This is usually a workshop or two and access to whatever I need to read.
I get on with it. You get a short, plain-English update every Friday so you always know where things stand. Anything urgent, you have my mobile. Anything not urgent, it can wait until Friday — and that's a feature, not a bug.
We close out with everything documented — the artefacts you'll use going forward, the decisions we made and why, what worked, what didn't. So when you don't need me anymore (or for the next round), you've got everything to keep going.
Belle Recruit isn't sector-locked — good hiring practice translates. That said, the businesses who tend to get the most value from working with us share a shape: founder-led, 5–50 staff, and ready to invest seriously in people without quite needing a full HR team.
Don't see your industry? It probably still fits. Have a chat with us.
Belle Recruit doesn't publish fixed pricing because no two engagements are the same shape — but the approach to pricing is the same every single time, and it's something you can rely on.
Every engagement is quoted as a single fixed price for an agreed scope. No hourly meter ticking in the background. No "a bit more than I thought" at the end of the month. You always know what you're spending.
The 30-minute call where we work out whether we're a fit — and what you actually need — never has a fee attached. Even if we don't end up working together, you'll leave the call with a clearer picture of your situation.
You see the proposal before you agree to anything. Scope, deliverables, timeline, price, all on one page. If it's not right, we adjust until it is — or we part with handshakes.
"I'd rather quote a fair price for honest work than nickel-and-dime my way through a year. It's a small business approach to working with small businesses."
She walked us through hiring our first ops manager from scratch — wrote the brief, ran the screening, and was honest when a candidate everyone liked wasn't right. The person we hired is still here two years later.
Belle ran a performance conversation I'd been avoiding for months. Two hours, everyone left clear, and the team member is still with us and thriving. I should have called her sooner.
The onboarding plan we got was better than anything I've seen at companies ten times our size. Our last three hires ramped twice as fast as the ones before.
Names withheld at client request. Direct references provided during the discovery call.
Two big differences. First, I don't charge a percentage of first-year salary — engagements are fixed-scope, fixed-price, so my financial incentive isn't tied to filling the seat at any cost. Second, I do more than fill the seat. Agencies stop at offer accepted. Belle Recruit can stay for the 90-day onboarding, build the scorecards your next hire will be measured against, and be in the room when performance conversations come up later.
If you don't have one, I can be a senior people-ops presence without you needing to hire a full-time Head of People. If you already have HR, I work alongside them — usually filling specialist gaps (recruitment, induction design, conversation facilitation) so they can stay focused on what they're good at.
Anywhere from a single 2-hour conversation (facilitating one tough meeting) through to a 6-month retainer (multiple hires, induction overhaul, ongoing support). Most projects sit somewhere between 2 and 8 weeks. The discovery call is where we work out which shape yours is.
Yes. I'm Australia-based and the work is remote-first — Teams, phone, email, Slack if you use it. For longer engagements or sensitive in-person conversations I can travel to you anywhere in Australia (travel quoted separately at cost).
We talk about it. Honestly. If a candidate I shortlisted doesn't work out in their probation period and the call was demonstrably mine to make, I'll re-run the search at no charge. That said, the hiring decision is always yours — I bring rigour to the process, I don't guarantee outcomes a third party can't fairly promise.
I'm not a lawyer and I won't pretend to be. I'll guide you on what an employment contract for the role should typically cover, and I'll point you at a good employment lawyer for the actual document. Fair Work-adjacent advice, conversations, and process — yes. Drafting legal documents — no.
Often that works really well. I tend to come in for the specialist work (senior hires, hard-to-fill roles, restructures, sensitive conversations) and hand the day-to-day back over. Your existing team learns from the work alongside getting the outcome.
No formal minimum. The smallest project I've taken on is one 2-hour facilitated conversation. The largest was a 9-month, multi-hire program. Whatever you actually need, that's the engagement.
Thirty minutes, on Teams, no pitch. You tell me what's going on, I ask questions, and by the end we'll either have a sense of a shape that could work, or we'll have agreed it's not the right call right now. Either way you should leave with a clearer head.
Anything you share with me in the course of an engagement stays between us — full stop. I'll happily sign an NDA before we even start the discovery call if you'd prefer. References on past work are always provided with the client's express permission, never proactively.
Held over Microsoft Teams. No pitch, no pressure — just a conversation about your people challenges and whether we're the right fit. You'll receive an automatic calendar invite as soon as you book.
Drop the details and I'll come back to you personally — usually within a business day, sometimes faster.