If you think about it, middle managers are nothing more than recruiters. If the metric really is the number of heads their team grows, then the only thing they'

If you think about it, middle managers are nothing more than recruiters. If the metric really is the number of heads their team grows, then the only thing they'd do is increasing their team size. In some areas, recruiters make 40-80k a referral on senior/specialties. The other thing is team growth is a defensive measure against recession layoffs and probably keeps eyes off a team if they've recently grew. It's either grow or die.