How to Improve Recruitment Quality

Top talent will NEVER join a company with a mediocre recruiting process. They assume the rest of your company matches that experience. Yet most leaders treat their recruiters like transactional rubber stampers — then wonder why they can't hire A-players. The reality: how you treat your recruiters gets reflected in your recruiting process. Treat them like cogs in a machine? That's EXACTLY how they'll treat your candidates. Here are 8 ways treating recruiters as strategic partners transforms your hiring: 1. Give them a seat at leadership meetings A biz recruiter pitched "we need an implementation specialist" for months. Candidates weren’t biting. Then she learned this hire would unlock a $2M contract. Changed her pitch to "we need this role to hit Q3 revenue." Filled in 2 weeks. 2. Make recruiting metrics visible company-wide When engineering managers check recruiting dashboards daily, magic happens. One team went from "where's my hire?" to "I see 3 strong candidates entering final rounds." Transparency turns recruiting from blame game to team sport. 3. Let them push back on unrealistic demands A recruiter shared w/ me why she quit her last role: "I was tired of smiling when they wanted senior engineers for junior salaries." Smart companies empower recruiters to say, "that's unrealistic." The rest lose their best recruiters. 4. Include them in offer strategy, not delivery Watched a startup land their dream candidate in 48 hours — beating higher cash offers — because their recruiter could negotiate on the spot. Most make recruiters deliver pre-baked offers like pizza. 5. Invest in their tools like engineering Teams tracking candidates in Google Sheets wonder why they can't compete. Companies investing in real recruiting tools see 4x productivity gains. Your engineers get the latest MacBooks. Why make recruiters work in spreadsheets? 6. Give them time to build relationships One Gem customer filled 70% of roles in 3 weeks. How? They maintained relationships with past candidates for YEARS. Most measure recruiters on this month’s roles they need to fill. So they spam everyone and start from zero next quarter. 7. Empower them with data "Trust me, the market's tough" doesn't move executives. "Your salary range is 25th percentile — here's the data" does. Give recruiters access to data and industry benchmarks. Watch them become business partners overnight. 8. Celebrate their wins like revenue That top 1% engineer who chose you over FAANG only happened thanks to your recruiter — celebrate them like AEs winning deals. Ring the gong. Most companies only notice recruiters when hiring stops. TAKEAWAY In this market — 2.7x more applications, 90% unqualified — the difference isn't headcount. It's whether you treat recruiters as strategic partners or paper pushers. Your recruiters are interviewing for new jobs right now. Still think they're just order-takers?

Résumés are dead signal. And most companies are still using them to make multi-hundred-thousand-dollar hiring decisions. Many HR functions are facilitating a dysfunctional process and not a critical business enablement function that gives leverage to the business. (Also highly frustrating to job seekers spending hours on resumes, applications, and interviews.) If your recruiting process starts with a résumé review and ends with a generic job description, you’re optimizing for polish—not performance. Here’s what high-growth, high-trust hiring actually looks like: 1. Hire from work, not words. Résumés are marketing copy. Ask: “What did you build that still works without you?” Have them walk you through it. A deck. A dashboard. A system. The best operators speak in outcomes. Everyone else describes process. 2. Prioritize ownership over optics. “Led,” “managed,” “oversaw”—those are spectator words. Ask: “What decision did you make—and what tradeoffs did you weigh?” Use this framework: What was the situation? What was your call? What happened next? You’ll know if they owned it—or just had a front-row seat. 3. Screen for judgment, not perfection. You’re not hiring someone who’s always right. You’re hiring someone who gets smarter with every rep. Ask: “What’s a decision you’d revisit now with new information?” Judgment compounds faster than skills. Look for signal that they’ve updated their playbook. 4. Run performance-based interviews. Would you greenlight a $300K contract based on a résumé and three Zoom calls? Then stop hiring that way. Create a scoped, role-relevant project. Debrief it live. You’re not testing polish—you’re testing how they think under pressure and with context. 5. Stop mistaking pedigree for potential. A Stanford degree or FAANG stint is just context, not signal. Ask: “What did you do that others around you weren’t doing?” Look for stretch, creativity, and earned scope. 10x people don’t always come from the obvious places. 6. Ditch culture fit. Define behavior. “Culture fit” is often a proxy for “feels familiar.” And that’s how you build sameness, not scale. Ask yourself: “What are the behaviors our best people consistently demonstrate?” Interview for those. Not vibes. Not style. 7. Design the org first. Then hire. Too many job descriptions are written after someone quits. That’s backfilling, not architecting. Ask: “What friction does this role unblock? What velocity does it add?” You can’t hire for leverage if you don’t map where you need it. 8. Hire for trajectory—not title. Title is a lagging indicator. Trajectory is a leading one. Ask: “Where were you two years ago—and what’s changed since?” Look for acceleration. People who scale themselves can scale your company. You don’t build a generational company by playing it safe. You build it by designing a hiring system that finds slope, judgment, and ownership—and rewards it.

📱 My phone’s been blowing up lately—colleagues on both sides of the hiring game are venting about the same thing. Job seekers can’t land roles, and hiring managers can’t find people who actually stay. About half of my network who were job-hunting have found something, but the other half are still stuck in the grind. Meanwhile, companies tell me that even when they do make a hire, retention is a nightmare—new employees are bouncing within six months. The disconnect is real: companies are hiring, candidates are applying, but something is clearly broken. Traditional hiring—bloated job descriptions, ATS black holes, and never-ending interview rounds—is failing everyone. So, what needs to change? 🔄 Here’s what I’ve seen work: ✅ Ditch the ATS Dependence – Get back to human recruiting instead of relying on keyword filters. ✍️ Fix Job Descriptions – Make them clear, real, and relevant—cut the jargon. 🤝 Prioritize Personal Connections – Hiring managers should actively engage instead of passively posting. 🎯 Focus on Skills, Not Just Titles – Look at what candidates can actually do, not just where they’ve been. ⏳ Speed Up the Process – The best talent won’t wait around for a four-week approval cycle. 💬 Improve the Candidate Experience – Give real feedback and make the process transparent. Here’s a real-world fix I put in place: At a previous company, the hiring pipeline was a mess—ATS filters blocked great candidates, and the process dragged on. I introduced a referral-first hiring approach, tapping employees’ networks before posting publicly. We also replaced multiple early-stage screenings with a 30-minute call with the hiring manager. 📉 Time-to-hire dropped 35% 🎯 Quality of hires improved—better fits, fewer regrets 📈 Retention rates increased—candidates knew exactly what they were signing up for 🔑 Bottom line: Hiring is broken, but it doesn’t have to be. The best hires come through real connections, not algorithms. What’s been your biggest hiring (or job search) frustration lately? Drop a comment 👇 #Hiring #Recruiting #JobSearch #TalentStrategy #HR #FutureOfWork

Let’s talk about hiring and how we treat people in the process. There’s a lot going on in the world right now. For many, the job search only adds more stress and uncertainty. I’ve been thinking about how we can show up for our communities, and in my own work, that means prioritizing how we support candidates. In the progressive movement, we talk a lot about liberation, equity, and justice. But those values don’t always show up where they should (in our hiring practices). Whether we’re building campaigns, nonprofits, or foundations, *how* we hire is just as important as *who* we hire. The process is wicked important. It’s a window into how we operate, how we value people, and how seriously we take our commitments to equity. Here’s what it looks like to treat candidates well in the hiring process, especially in movement-aligned spaces: 1. Transparency & Respect ➡️ Post the salary every time. It’s not radical anymore, it’s baseline. ➡️ Share your timeline and stick to it. If things shift, update candidates about that shift. ➡️ Respond to everyone who applies or interviews. Even if it’s a no, it matters. ➡️ Share interview questions with your candidates ahead of time. This helps them prep and show up as their best selves to the call. 2. Remove Barriers ➡️ Ditch the cover letter and use clear application questions. Or, just ask for a resume and send a short written questionnaire as the first step in the process. ➡️ Again, be upfront about salary and benefits. It saves everyone time and builds trust. ➡️ Be mindful of time. Many strong candidates simply can’t afford to spend 10+ hours on interviews. Keep the process streamlined, focused, and as efficient as possible. ➡️ Compensate finalists for exercises. It shows you value people’s time and helps dismantle unpaid labor culture. 3. Consistent Process & Reduced Bias ➡️ Standardize your interviews. Same questions, same format = less bias, more fairness. ➡️ Use blind grading when appropriate. I like doing this especially for written exercises. A clear rubric helps us focus on key competencies.  ➡️ Make it collaborative. Final stages should include buy-in from both leadership and peers or direct reports the hire will work closely with. 4. The Candidate Experience Is Movement Work ➡️ Share your mission, values, and team vibe throughout the process. Candidates want to know what they’re stepping into. ➡️ For interviews, give candidates a heads-up on who they’ll meet and what to expect. When we treat candidates with dignity and transparency, we build stronger teams and stronger movements. We’re not perfect, and we don’t expect anyone else to be either, but we love partnering with clients who are willing to do the work to get better together. 🔍🔍 What would you add? What have you seen that works (or doesn’t) in progressive hiring? Drop your thoughts below. #EquityInHiring #NonprofitJobs #DEI #WorkplaceCulture #CandidateExperience #HiringEquity #PayTransparency 

We continue to see upheaval in the insights profession and have way too many candidates for too few open positions. Some days it feels dysfunctional battlefield filled with desperate, frustrated people – and that’s on the hiring side. Insights Career Network interviewed 38 recruiters and hiring managers and 32 job seekers last year on the hiring process in insights and I have spoken to countless professionals through our bi-weekly meetups that tell me we are facing a Qualification Paradox; How do we have an abundance of both underqualified & overqualified candidates, but none that are ‘just the right fit’? There’s room for improvement. What’s Not Working: ❌ Quick Apply: Do you really need MORE applicants?  Many of the recruiters and hiring managers interviewed said they wanted customized applications but couldn’t guarantee they would read cover letters. ❌ Lengthy Timelines & Extensive Cast Studies: Multiple rounds of interviews, long waiting periods, rejection notifications months after the application, and minimal feedback leaves candidates frustrated. Requiring original research work or strategic planning exercises can backfire with experienced candidates wary of doing “free work”. ❌ Lack of Transparency & Ghosting: Applicants and interviewees are left in the dark about where they stand in the process, even especially after interviewing. ❌Overemphasis on “Perfect Fit”: Companies often focus too much on checking every box, overlooking candidates with diverse, transferable skills ❌Internal recruiters without proper context: They can only work with the guidelines they are given, so they may be more likely to lean on what they know, including biases about geographic location and age, when filtering candidates when there are gaps. ❌Brain Drain. It is now common for an experienced market research, UX, CX or another insights professional to be unemployed from the insights profession for 2 years. Many chose to leave or retire early. How Can We Make It Better? ✅ Set clear timelines, communicate them to interviewees, and stick to them ✅ Tailor the process to the position level:  entry/junior level ⇒ 2-3 interviews,  mid level ⇒ 3-4 .interviews,  senior/exec level ⇒ 4-5 ✅ Improve Communication: Cut them lose as soon as you know they aren’t a fit. Even a simple “We’re still reviewing applications,” can go a long way. ✅ Partnership and alignment: Invest in the relationships between Hiring Managers, Talent Acquisition and Recruiters – ensure that the needs and requirements for the role are realistic, intimately understood and that success criteria are clear. Focus on potential and note flexibility on education, location, or adjacent experiences. ✅Throw some AI at the quantity problem. But remember who is in charge and train the tool to include what’s really important to you. ✅ Experiment: Share the questions you plan with candidates prior to the interview, consider experienced candidates for individual contributor roles.  Randy Adis

The way we hire is broken. Here's what I would do instead: 1. Have the hiring manager write what are the 3 main functions of the role and the 3 most important skill sets they are looking for. 2. Fill out information about what kind of hours are expected in the role and what kind of characteristics and qualities would make a person thrive. 3. Share a salary range within $30K spread and be up front about the total compensation package. 4. Write the job description in human voice that speaks to painting a picture of the day to day with all the information above. 5. Set a specific deadline of when to apply by and 1-3 quick (no more than 10 minutes spent total!) qualifying questions to assess candidate's capabilities to do the actual job. Example: (for a marketing manager: how would you go about creating a title for a SEO blog post ranking for keyword: interview). 6. Put position on hold and don't accept any more applications. Review all submissions and select 3 that are most closely aligned with what hiring manager is looking for. 7. Interview top 3 in Zoom interview with specific set of questions. Share notes with hiring manager to decide who top 2 are. 8. Bring top 2 contenders in for on-site or Zoom panel; no more than 3 interviewers. Important questions should be flushed out ahead of time and have a scorecard to be objective about overall fit. 9. Update each candidate that took time to prepare for interviews on status and when they can hear a response back. 10. Extend offer. If accepted, close requisition, and let everyone who applied know the position has been filled. What did I miss? As a in-house recruiter and headhunter, I know this is easier said than done with the volume of candidates - but feel strongly if employers have clarity in the beginning of what the non-negotiables they are looking for, recruiting would be more smooth sailing! #happilyhired #interview #recruiting

Your slow hiring process could be costing you the best candidates, think sprint vs marathon. (Okay let’s make it 800 meters because it’s not quite a sprint.) "You want quality? Then take your time!" Not Exactly.. Honestly....the leaders I've worked with both as internal HR and 3rd party recruiter don't "take their time" thinking it will increase quality. Here's what I've learned on my own and from leaders I've worked with.. 1. It's not about just moving faster - it's about doing the work before and having a system in place. 2. Get your team on the Same Page Before you start interviewing...this is possibly the biggest issue I see. ➡️ Hiring leader wants this… ➡️ the Hiring Leader Manager thinks X… ➡️ Each party interviews candidate, 'calibrate' to find out they are not calibrated on what they are looking for.. The job description is a laundry list of requirements sometimes from old JD's and now from AI If you list out the real requirements showing which ones are priorities and have that as part of selection process, it will save you a lot of time.  Yes...priorities may change as you get going but you have a foundation to work from. Here's what you can do..it's not easy I get it but if you take an hour upfront..you'll get hours if not days back in time.. 1. Get Ruthless with Your "Must-Haves" 🎯 Take a good look at your team. What skills do you actually need? I mean REALLY need. 🎯 Stop copying old job descriptions and get real. 🎯 Trust me - you don't need 15 requirements. Pick 3-6 that actually matter. Game changer! 2. Get Your Team on the Same Page - 🎯 If your team isn't aligned on what you're looking for... you're gonna waste time. 🎯 Nothing kills hiring speed like five different people wanting five different things. Hash it out first! 3. Create a Simple Rating System Look, we all have biases (yep, me too!). 🎯 Having a clear way to evaluate candidates keeps everyone honest and moving quick. 🎯 No more "gut feeling" hires that we regret later... I’ve seen leaders take months finding the right candidates. With some preparation you can get it to several weeks, spend less time and higher quality. What's the biggest factor impacting the speed/quality of hire? #Hiring #RealTalk #Leadership #Recruitment

Give a founder a new hire, and they'll be happy. Teach a founder to recruit, and they'll be unstoppable. A good friend and fellow founder reached out with a problem. Over six months, he'd hired multiple people into critical roles and had to let each go within 90 days. He'd worked with external recruiters and gotten strong signals during candidate interviews but found a culture clash within a few weeks of the new hire starting. So, we worked together to rebuild the recruiting process, focusing on self-service. Here's what we did in 9 steps: Step 1: Established values, expectations, and objectives for the team Step 2: Scoped what this new hire must deliver in the first few weeks, months, and years to be deemed successful. Step 3: We looked at successful hires at competitors to identify common traits (bonus: We also used our platform to look at those terminated within 90 days, even if the experience was no longer on their LinkedIn profile). Step 4: Drafted a clear, objective, and data-driven job specification for the role using everything we'd learned. Step 5: Built a recruiting process that would test aspects of the job specification with increasing detail at each stage (as simple as possible, but no simpler). Step 6: Filled the top of the funnel with promising candidates that met the must-have requirements. Step 7: Moved candidates through the funnel in batches while ensuring the top of the funnel remained full to avoid succumbing to the "scarcity effect." Step 8: Once all the signals pointed towards a strong hire, crafted a flexible and compelling offer that met the needs of the individual and within the budget constraints of the business. Note: We didn't wait to "see more candidates" as we'd already established objective requirements earlier. Step 9: Designed an onboarding process to set the new hire up for success. The immediate result – 2 senior roles closed in 2 months. The long-term result – the team had a playbook with a repeatable process that they've used successfully to continue building the team over the last six months. With zero recruiting resources. — The engagement was a lot of fun, and I've been thrilled to watch the team grow and thrive from a distance over the last year. But…I want to do more of this work while we continue building our core product. I'm opening up a service offering to work directly with a few founders and startup leaders to help build a recruiting process that delivers. If this sounds like something that would help you or someone you know, comment below or send an InMail. I will limit these engagements to 3-4 at a time to give each engagement the focus it deserves. #startups #hiring #recruitment

How to cut your interview-to-hire ratio in half: Most hiring processes waste enormous time interviewing candidates who were never right for the role. Here's how to fix that: 🎯 Create a structured pre-screening process that tests for actual job requirements, not just resume keywords 🎯 Have candidates complete a small, paid sample project that mirrors actual work 🎯 Involve team members in early screening calls to assess cultural fit The standard approach is fundamentally flawed - reviewing dozens of resumes, conducting multiple rounds of interviews, only to start over when no one fits. Instead, focus on quality of assessment over quantity of candidates. A well-designed 60-minute technical assessment will tell you more than five generic interviews. We've seen companies reduce their time-to-hire by 40% simply by reimagining their screening process to focus on demonstrated skills rather than claimed experience. Quality at speed isn't a contradiction. It's a methodology that transforms expectations in technical recruiting. #RightfitAdvantage #HiringEfficiency #TechRecruitment #TalentAcquisition #InterviewStrategy

Top talent won’t work at sloppy businesses. The hiring process is a business’s first impression. ‘Please upload your resume before reentering the same information into a digital form’ won’t cut it. Showing up 10+ minutes late for the phone screen or introduction call screens out the best people. If the candidate is expected to be on time, recruiters and hiring managers must maintain the same standard. Posting on job boards where 200+ candidates apply in the first 2 hours makes top talent keep scrolling. Even if they apply, you’ll probably never see their resume. Automate candidate discovery and spend time on targeted outreach. Go to the candidates you want, and you won’t have to spend that time sifting through spammers. Invest in training to improve the hiring process. Recruiters need technical literacy training and job shadows to know who to look for. Leaders need training to make them better at hiring. It’s not a natural strength for most people, so leaders need support. Streamline hiring processes. It reduces the costs, disruptions, and time to hire. Bonus! Top talent is more likely to begin and complete a well-designed hiring process. #hiringprocess #leadership #datascience