An in-house recruiting team is a real asset when your hiring is steady and generalist. But standing one up — or asking a stretched HR team to run a specialized veteran search on the side — carries costs that don't show up on the fee line. Here's how a veteran staffing agency compares to in-house recruiting on cost, speed, and expertise, so you can decide role by role.
| Factor | In-House Recruiting | Veteran Agency (LockLeed) |
|---|---|---|
| Cost structure | Fixed — salary + tools | Variable — pay on hire |
| Best for | Steady, generalist hiring | Specialized, surge, hard-to-fill |
| Military talent network | Built from scratch | Ready on day one |
| Time to first slate | Depends on capacity | 5–10 business days |
| Surge capacity | Limited by headcount | Scales without hiring |
| Veteran vetting expertise | Rare in-house | Core competency |
| Risk on a bad hire | Sunk cost | Placement guarantee |
What in-house recruiting does well
Nobody knows your culture, your managers, and your day-to-day like your own people. For steady, predictable, generalist hiring, an internal recruiter is efficient and builds institutional knowledge with every search. If you're filling similar roles month after month, that fixed cost amortizes well.
Where it gets expensive
The costs hide in three places. First, fixed overhead: a recruiter's salary, benefits, tools, and job-board licenses are due whether you're hiring one role or ten. Second, specialization gaps: a generalist internal recruiter rarely has a military talent network or the ability to translate an MOS into a civilian competency, so hard-to-fill and veteran-specific roles stall. Third, surge and vacancy cost: when hiring spikes or a critical seat sits open, an over-stretched team either misses timelines or lets an expensive vacancy drag on.
What an agency adds
A veteran staffing agency is a variable cost with a specialized network attached. You pay only when you hire, you tap a ready pipeline of vetted military talent instead of building one, and you get surge capacity without adding headcount. LockLeed slots in exactly where an internal team is thinnest — the technical, leadership, and hard-to-fill roles, or the moment when hiring outpaces the team you have. It's not either/or: most companies keep their internal team for steady generalist hiring and use an agency for the specialized or surge work.
A simple way to decide
Run the math on a per-role basis. If a seat is generalist, recurring, and your team has capacity, keep it in-house. If it's specialized, time-sensitive, or you'd have to hire (and train) a recruiter just to fill it, an agency is almost always faster and cheaper for that role — you rent the network instead of building it.