Best Startup Recruiters in New York City (NYC)
Dover
June 6, 2025
•
5 min
New York City has thousands of active startups ranging from fintech to climate tech. That variety attracts some of the best talent, but competition to find and hire one is fierce. With a short supply of skilled talent and companies fighting over top candidates, time-to-hire increases while compensation packages keep rising.
Recruiting firms that dedicate all their resources to finding specialized talent give founders a real advantage in this challenging market.
Startups in NYC largely outsource when:
The founding team is spread too thin and can’t afford to drag hiring for months.
A recent funding round demands proof of hiring velocity before the next milestone.
The company needs someone with niche skills, so posting on job boards will not cut it.
The team expanded to a new city (for example, an satellite office) and wants local outreach.
NYC recruiters live in Slack groups, tech meetups, and alumni channels that outsiders never see. They know who is quietly poking around, which unicorn just cut staff, and what salary range will keep a candidate from ghosting.
So, finding the right recruiter can make or break your hiring goals. Now, let's check the options of tech recruiting platforms.
Below is a curated list of ten firms founders rave about most often. Each section explains strengths, pricing, and best-fit use cases.
1. Dover: Best Overall. Fractional Recruiters + Free ATS
What makes Dover special
Dover combines a no-cost applicant tracking system with a marketplace of experienced fractional recruiters. Founders can create a pipeline in minutes, track every candidate in a clean Kanban view, and add an hourly recruiter on a moment's notice.
Key points:
Fractional model: Pay roughly $75-$150/hour and keep costs between $3K-$7K per hire rather than a 25% contingency fee.
Free ATS: Unlimited jobs, users, Slack alerts, and a career page that updates automatically.
AI scoring: Resumes rank top-to-bottom against custom filters so hiring managers skim the best candidates first.
Sourcing tools: Chrome extension grabs contact info and launches email sequences in two clicks.
One-click posting: Post openings to 70+ boards (LinkedIn, Indeed, Wellfound) without extra log-ins.
Referrals: Invite employees and investors to submit intros; the system tracks and rewards them.
Agency portal: If you already work with other recruiters, store every submission in one view instead of a chaotic inbox.
Best Fit: Dover is popular with Seed to Series B teams that do want to hire a full-time recruiter, but still need to meet hiring goals over the next quarter. More than 600 startups, from AI firms to consumer apps, depend on Dover as their single source for recruiting.
Hear it from clients about Dover's ATS:
“Dover's ATS has given us more time back to spend in the lab and the tools we need to build our team,” Naren Tallapragada, CEO and Co-founder, Tessel Bio
2. Averity: the Manhattan crew that “speaks code”
Averity focuses on engineering, data, and infrastructure roles. All recruiters are split by niche, so your data engineer recommendation comes from someone who actually knows Spark from Snowflake.
Pricing: Fees land at the classic 20-25% of first-year salary, yet clients report fewer false starts because Averity’s vetting includes take-home projects and in-depth technical screens.
Best-fit for: Growth-stage startups and tech firms wanting to hire thoroughly vetted candidates for data, DevOps, and backend roles.
3. Clutch Talent: improving diversity through deliberate sourcing
Clutch is a women-owned firm determined to fix the gender gap in tech. Recruiters spend extra effort building relationships with women/non-binary engineers, and other underrepresented talent who may hesitate to apply cold. Clutch's Services include:
Resume feedback
Mock interviews
Salary coaching for candidates
Pricing: Clutch Talent offers partial to full-service subscription-based packages, with additional fees for vetting processes depending on hiring needs.
Best fit for: Startups that are looking to hire a more diverse team. Use them if diversity is a your goal.
4. Motion Recruitment: volume hiring without losing specialization
Motion runs 70+ micro-teams, each dedicated to a single tech stack or role type. That structure lets them handle bulk orders, think 15 React developers, 12 QA engineers, and a VP of SRE, while still maintaining the quality of candidates.
Pricing: Traditional contingency fee.
Best fit for: Later stage or larger tech companies.
5. Betts Recruiting: go-to-market experts
Betts places growth marketers and customer success candidates. Betts Connect, its private candidate portal, lets hiring managers scan pre-vetted SDRs, AEs, and marketing managers sorted by quota performance and industry.
Pricing: Traditional contingency fee.
Best fit for: GTM hiring teams with the capacity to manage candidate outreach and funnel.
6. AC Lion: executive search for digital media
AC Lion has filled New York media and e-commerce teams for 25 years. Clients span streaming, DTC lifestyle brands, and AR platforms. They focus on executive search more than normal hiring.
Pricing: Traditional contingency fee or retainer.
Best fit for: Consumer or media-driven startups, requiring rapid team builds in competitive niches.
7. TwentyPine: all things Salesforce and revenue operations
TwentyPine lives inside the Salesforce ecosystem. Whether you need an admin to clean automation or an architect to design a multi-org strategy, they already have certified candidates just a message away. They also place revenue-ops managers who align sales and customer success tooling.
Pricing: Expect a 25% placement fee.
Best fit for: Startups within the Salesforce ecosystem looking for certified professionals for roles such as administrators, architects, and revenue operations managers. Tends to be post-Series B
8. Robert Half Technology: broad network, quick contractors
Robert Half maintains a bench of temporary or contract employees who can start immediately, plus permanent tech talent. The trade-off is a less tailored search compared to boutique firms.
Pricing: Although the prices are not publicly disclosed, according to remote people, you can expect to pay contingency fees of an average of 20-35% for permanent tech talent and 70% for temporary roles.
Best fit for: Startups that need immediate help and don't need a highly skilled candidate.
9. 80Twenty: creative and design freelancers and hires
80Twenty fills roles like product marketing manager, UX designer, and social media lead. Startups launching a consumer app love the agency’s knack for finding storytellers.
Pricing: Contracts can be project-based, temp-to-hire, or full-time placements.
Best fit for: Startups needing creative talent or vetted design freelancers.
10. Riviera Partners: senior tech leadership on retainer
Riviera Partners handles C-suite and VP searches only. Their data platform tracks thousands of senior engineers and product leaders, including passive candidates. If you're searching for a CTO ready to lead 50 engineers or a VP Product to guide a roadmap past Series C, Riviera is the recruiting partner you need.
Pricing: The firm works on a retained basis at roughly one-third of first-year cash compensation.
Best fit for: Companies with mature engineering teams looking to bring on experienced C-suite and VP-level talent through a data-driven executive search approach.
Recruiter | Core focus | Good for which stage |
|---|---|---|
Dover | Fractional recruiters + a free ATS. | Seed to Series B with flexible hiring needs |
Averity | Software, data, DevOps | Any stage |
Clutch Talent | Women and underrepresented tech talent | Teams working on diversity goals |
Motion Recruitment | High-volume multi-role search | Later stage |
Betts Recruiting | Sales and marketing roles | First revenue hires or quota push |
AC Lion | Digital media, adtech, product | Consumer or media-driven startups |
TwentyPine | Salesforce and RevOps experts | SaaS firms building a revenue engine |
Robert Half Tech | Contractors and IT generalists | Quick fill or short-term projects |
80Twenty | Creative, design, marketing | Brand-heavy product launches |
Riviera Partners | CTO, VP Engineering, Head of Product | Growth-stage executive search |
How to choose the best recruiting partner
The list above contains every possible situation a startup can come across while hiring, from a fractional recruiter providing hourly help to retained executive search for senior roles. However, before signing a contract, founders should think through four questions:
Which roles hurt the most if left open: rank positions by impact on revenue or product progress.
Budget versus urgency: hourly fractional work may cost less cash up front, while a contingency search costs nothing until placement.
Company story: agencies that align with your mission will pitch better to candidates and keep dropout rates low.
Internal bandwidth: If no one can screen resumes, pick a partner who runs intake calls and coding tests without hand-holding.
Need a deeper plan? Our piece on fractional recruiter cost breaks down pricing across models, while the startup hiring trends 2026 helps you predict which roles New York investors expect founders to staff next year.
Frequently asked questions
What does a fractional recruiter do day-to-day?
They source, screen, and schedule. Think of them as part-time teammates who ramp instantly, then step back once the pipeline is full. At Dover, fractional pros work inside your Slack, attend stand-ups, and adjust hours each week based on hiring load.
Is a recruiter in NYC the same as a recruiter in SF?
Not quite. NYC talent tends to include more fintech and enterprise experience, while SF candidates often have deep SaaS and AI backgrounds. If you plan to hire engineers in San Francisco as well, pick an agency with bicoastal reach, like Dover, Motion, and Betts.
How long does it take to hire an engineer in New York right now?
With a specialized recruiter, 3-5 weeks from kick-off to signed offer is typical for mid-level engineers. Senior or niche roles can stretch to eight weeks. Founders running solo sometimes report 90-day cycles or longer.
Are contingency fees worth the cost?
They save cash when you rarely hire, but costs can increase once the headcount plan hits double digits. Hourly or subscription models gain favor because the total cost per hire drops as hiring volume rises. Our guide on hiring mistakes startup founders make shows real math behind each path.
Final thoughts
Whether you lean on Dover’s free ATS, pull in a fractional expert for ten hours a week, or run a retained search for a seasoned CTO, investing in a structured recruiting process pays for itself many times over. Especially in a city like NY, you’re competing with hundreds of other startups, if not more, for top-tier tech talent. One mistake and it can put a pause on product launches. If you're interested in learning more, feel free to get in touch with one of our startup recruiters to see what we can do.
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