Recruiter salary in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area

Pay in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area against Illinois and the US

The middle half of recruiters in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area earns $56,140–$87,440. Pay is tightly grouped: the top tenth starts at $107,420, only 2.2 times the bottom tenth, against 2.7 times across the US, so the going rate is easier to read. From the 25th to the 75th percentile, the local range is only $31,300 wide, against $37,830 across Illinois and $40,770 nationally: employers in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area pay within a narrower band.

What to budget for a recruiter here

An offer at the 75th percentile instead of the median adds $17,310 a year in pay and about $22,335 in employer cost. Going down to the 25th percentile saves $13,990 in pay. These percentiles describe what people in the job earn locally, not experience levels, so place your offer by the tasks and seniority you need.

For scale, the US median of $75,940 falls between the median and the 75th percentile in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area, and the Illinois statewide median of $76,820 falls there too.

What a hire really costs in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area

Pay is only part of it. Benefits and payroll taxes other than paid leave are 22.5% of total compensation in US private industry², which adds about $20,360 to the $70,130 median and brings it to $90,490 a year. Recruiting, equipment and office space come on top. Benefit levels vary by employer, so treat this as an estimate.

We place executive assistants, customer support and e-commerce staff today; for recruiters we answer within one business day whether we can help. Enter the monthly pay you have in mind to compare it with a local hire. The fee field shows our standard fee³; Deel's contractor plan is the default payroll tool⁴.

Other roles in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area

Of the 17 roles we track in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area, this one ranks #3 by median pay, between accountants ($73,400) and office managers ($63,070). Project Coordinator is the highest at $96,420.

Measured against the US median, recruiters rank #10 of the 17 roles we track in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area (-7.7%), between e-commerce order specialists (-7.4%) and bookkeepers (-8.5%). The typical role here is at -7.4%, so this job follows the area's general pay level. Recruiters hold 4.1% of the jobs in these 17 roles in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area, 5.8% across Illinois and 5.8% nationally. The job is a smaller part of the local workforce in these roles than it is nationally.

Other areas in Illinois

Across the 12 areas of Illinois with data for this job, the median runs from $63,380 in the South Illinois nonmetro area to $78,840 in Springfield, a gap of $15,460 a year. Of the 9 areas in Illinois with more recruiters than the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area, 5 pay less, the largest of them Rockford, IL ($65,490), Champaign-Urbana, IL ($67,360) and the West Central Illinois nonmetro area ($65,350).

the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area against other US metro areas

By number of jobs, the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area is #310 of 521 US areas for this job. Both its size and its pay sit in the middle half of US areas. Outside Illinois, Harrisburg-Carlisle and Killeen-Temple pay just above the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area and Ames and Allentown-Bethlehem just below. All four are within $90 a year of the median in the Northwest Illinois nonmetro area. Of the three markets with about as many recruiters, none pays as much.

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Sources

How these pages are built: methodology and data sources. Last updated 2026-11-12.