Hiring is broken.
Talent teams are being asked to do more with less: fewer people, tighter timelines, and rising expectations. Meanwhile, job boards flood inboxes with poor-fit CVs. Internal tools are clunky. Employer branding gets sidelined. And there’s barely time to breathe between roles to fill.
Recruitment shouldn’t feel like a losing battle. But for many, it does. If you’re still wondering how to fix a broken recruitment process, you’re not alone. And the smartest teams have already started.
Why traditional hiring models no longer work
Job boards, spreadsheets, siloed systems. They’re all relics of a time when candidate behaviour was simpler, and competition was lower. But today:
This fragmented, reactive approach makes recruitment more expensive, more stressful, and less effective.
The false sense of progress
Flooded inboxes feel like traction. But volume doesn’t equal value. Too often, teams confuse activity with success and mistakenly spend hours screening CVs that never convert. This leads to frustration, burnout, and broken trust with hiring managers.
Progress isn’t about the number of applicants. It’s about how quickly and consistently you can connect with the right ones.
Why job boards are no longer enough
In September 2024, 80% of filled roles came from outside traditional job boards via social, search, retargeting or networking. That trend is accelerating.
The reality? Posting on a job board and waiting is a gamble. If you're not meeting candidates where they are, you're already behind. Job boards still have their place. But relying on them as your core source of talent means you're missing reach, missing relevance, and ultimately, missing results.
To make real progress, recruitment strategies need to evolve to meet modern candidate behaviour. That means expanding your reach, improving creativity, and using data to guide decision-making (not just gut feel).
How candidate behaviour has changed
Today’s candidates are scrolling TikTok, swiping through Instagram Stories, Googling career advice, and browsing Reddit communities. They don’t wake up and open a job board. They stumble across opportunities when they’re engaged elsewhere.
That means:
If your job ad doesn’t show up in the right place, at the right time, in the right format, then it won’t be seen. And if your brand doesn’t feel relevant or authentic when it does appear, the best candidates won’t click.
What high-performing talent teams are doing differently
The smartest hiring teams aren’t managing 10 tools. They are focusing on outcomes over admin, and choosing recruitment marketing strategies that:
✅ Target ideal-fit candidates across all the channels that matter
✅ Include creative, strategy, optimisation and employer branding
✅ Offer real-time insights, not outdated dashboards
✅ Integrate seamlessly with your ATS
✅ Reduce internal workload while increasing quality and speed
These teams are also embracing the power of AI, not as a gimmick, but as a genuine force for efficiency, accuracy and smarter targeting. Because AI is already improving recruitment outcomes when it’s used strategically.
What to look for in a modern recruitment partner
If you're considering changing your hiring approach, here’s what the smartest TA teams now prioritise:
The results speak for themselves
By moving to smarter, AI-powered recruitment marketing, teams are seeing:
These figures reflect what’s possible when every part of the hiring funnel is connected. From the first interaction to the final interview, effective recruitment marketing builds steady momentum. When it’s paired with creative that reflects your brand and targeting that cuts through irrelevant noise, hiring becomes faster and more focused. And, crucially, it means hiring teams can focus on building relationships, not fighting systems.
It’s time to fix the recruitment process for good
So much of what slows hiring down isn’t about people but about process. If we fix the process (the strategy, the targeting, the creative, the delivery), we unlock the potential of internal teams to do what they do best: engage, nurture, and hire.
If your recruitment still relies on job boards, endless filtering, and disconnected campaigns, ask yourself: is this helping us hire the right people or just keeping us busy? The most forward-thinking teams are already making the shift. Want to do the same? Book a free strategy session with Gaia.
Whether you're looking to scale hiring without scaling your team, reduce reliance on job boards, or increase the quality of your candidates, we'll show you how GaiaComplete can help.