One-Size-Fits-All Hiring is Killing Your Candidate Pipeline - Here's why...

This week in the Holistic Recruiter #027

👋 TA leaders, recruiters, and hiring managers - Welcome back to The Holistic Recruiter Club!

Hope you’re all surviving February. Big thanks to everyone who’s been liking, sharing, and subscribing, this newsletter is growing fast, and I’m buzzing to keep sharing insights that actually help you hire better, faster, and smarter.

🚨 This week, we’re tackling a big hiring myth:

👉 Why using the same hiring process for every role is killing your candidate pipeline.

But first… something exciting.

🔥 TA & HR Leaders This Will Change How You Track Hiring Forever 🔥

📢 Recruitment metrics are broken.

- Every company calculates them differently.

- Hiring managers don’t trust the data.

- Too many BS reports, not enough actionable insights.

So Jean-Marie Caillaud and I are DONE with the confusion.

We've been building the "Ultimate Recruitment Metrics Bible". A clear, structured, no BS database of every hiring metric that actually matters. But we need your help.

It has:

✔ Definitions – So everyone speaks the same language

✔ Formulas – The right way to calculate each metric

✔ Use cases – When & why to track them

✔ Best practices – How to use them to make better hiring decisions + best ways to visualise each one!

💡 BUT, but, but before we release it, we need YOUR feedback. Yes, you 🫵

We’re running two exclusive feedback sessions on in French and one in English with limited space and in return:

- Get early access before anyone else

- Help shape the final version – tell us what’s missing, what’s useful, what’s fluff

- Be part of something that will help the entire TA community

🔥This is NOT a sales pitch.🔥

We’re not selling this. This is for the community. We want your honest feedback.

🖐 Spots are limited. Fancy getting involved? Pop me a message

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Recruitment Campaigns You May Not Have Seen Before + This Week’s Funny
I’m combining this week’s segments!

Would You Ask Ricky Gervais to Advertise Your Jobs? 🎭

Before you say “This is terrible!, you have to understand the satire and smartness behind this ad.

In 2002, Ricky Gervais, creator of “The Office,” starred in an advertisement for the disability charity Leonard Cheshire. The campaign promoted jobability.com, a website for disabled jobseekers, developed in partnership with Microsoft and totaljobs.com. The initiative aimed to challenge employers’ perceptions and was timed to coincide with the 2003 European Year of People with Disabilities.

In today’s context its on the line

But it’s brutally honest when it comes to hiring discrimination as it often comes disguised as “company fit.”

It’s satire at its finest, Ok I love Gervais’ work, but this showcaes hiring barriers in a way that makes you laugh and think.

It also highlights a proper hiring challenges that still exist today, one that most recruiters avoid talking about.

So I ask again would you ever get Ricky to advertise your open jobs? Or is this kind of campaign too risky?

🎥 Watch it here:
👇 Drop your thoughts in the comments!

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🚀 Turning Research Into Actions: 7 Part Series of The Most Effective Hiring Process. Part 6/7

Over the past few weeks, we’ve covered:

📌 Week 1: The history of hiring and selection
📌 Week 2: What actually predicts job performance (spoiler alert! Structured interviews and job-specific assessments win).
📌 Week 3: How to design a hiring process that balances efficiency, fairness, and candidate experience.
📌 Week4: Metrics That Actually Matter
📌 Week 5: Optimising the Length of the Process

Now, let’s talk about tailoring your hiring process for different roles.

Why Every Role Needs a Different Hiring Process

One of the biggest recruitment mistakes I see? Companies running every hire through the same process. Same number of steps same logic same, same, same boring and not helpful.

Two common reasons are becasue its the way their ATS is set up, Two they are trying to create a streamline hiring process that’s easy to analyse.

As we discussed last week, research shows that longer hiring processes increase candidate dropouts, especially for high-demand talent who are interviewing elsewhere.

💡 So what does that mean? Well I believe A hiring process should reflect this:

• Job complexity – Does the role actually require five rounds of interviews?

• Talent scarcity – Are you competing for niche skills? If so, speed matters.

• Candidate experience – A long, clunky process signals red flags to top talent.

I hear you again, yes John that sound jolly marvellous in Theory.

Ok, ok I will share my 3-step guide to implementing this properly! So you can do it too.

I get it you don’t just want the theory, you want to actually implement this without making a mess of your hiring process. So here’s how to do it properly.

🚨 First: STOP. This is The Holistic Recruiter Club

which means before you change anything, you zoom out and look at the big picture. Hiring isn’t a one size fits all game, so ask yourself these questions before making changes:

• Is this a high-volume role?

• Think about how you balance speed v rigor

• Should we focus on transferable skills, not deep assessments?

• Is this a specialised or nieche role?

• Depth > Speed – Take more time to test for hard-to-find skills.

• Assessments should be job-relevant, not just a filter.

🎯 Is this a leadership role? (VP, Director, Senior TA Lead)

• Context & vision matter – Case studies and deep business discussions trump generic assessments.

• Candidates expect clarity – Dragging out the process makes you look disorganized.

SECONDLY, Adapt Your Selection Process to Fit the Role (Because One Size Fits All is Bullshit yes that’s right B U L L S H I T )

One of the biggest hiring mistakes I see? Running every single candidate through the same generic process.

🚨 Not every hire needs the same level of testing, screening, or interviews. If you’re making senior leaders do generic competency tests, or forcing high-volume hires through five rounds of interviews, you’re losing great people before they even make it to the offer stage.

So let’s fix that. Try this.

For High-Volume Roles

• Keep it fast. Structured interviews + quick decision-making.

• Automate where possible – pre-recorded video interviews, chatbots, quick skill tests.

For Specialized Roles

• Test what actually matters. Make assessments mimic real work.

• Short, structured take-home projects > generic personality tests. If you’re still asking software engineers for a random logic test instead of real coding tasks, stop.

For Leadership Roles

• Fewer interviews, deeper chats. A leadership hire shouldn’t feel like they’re jumping through hoops.

• Test strategic thinking, not just skills. Give them real problems to talk through, not just “Tell me about a time you managed a team.” Thats a quick way to turn them away

Finally Measure & Improve Candidate Experience (Because Process Doesn’t Equal Experience)

You might think your hiring process is solid on paper, but do candidates actually feel the same way?

If top candidates keep ghosting you, they’re not “just going elsewhere.” They’re actively choosing not to deal with your hiring process.

So, let’s stop assuming and start measuring.

How to Find Out If Your Hiring Process Actually Works

Ask, don’t guess. Send a 1-question post-interview survey: NO THIS ISNT NPS

“How was your hiring experience?” (Scale of 1-10)

Track drop-offs.

• If senior candidates ghost after Round 2, it’s a process problem.

• If high-volume candidates disappear early, screening is too slow.

Compare yourself to competitors.

• Are similar companies hiring faster than you?

• Are you losing candidates at offer stage? That’s not a coincidence.

Warning Sign: If your hiring process has 5+ steps for most roles, you’re probably pushing candidates away.

Final Top tip: Test a fast-track hiring pilot for in-demand roles cut the fluffy stuff, speed things up, and compare results. You might be surprised how much faster (and better) you can hire!!!

Have you been through a hiring process so bad you walked away? Reply and tell me the worst one you’ve seen! 🚀

Coming Up Next Part 7 of 7: The Final Piece In the Puzzle Making Hiring Better, Always

So, we’ve tackled hiring process bloat, bad candidate experience, and role-specific hiring fixes, but: hiring isn’t a “set it and forget it” process.

Next week, we’re wrapping up this series with how to build a culture of continuous hiring improvement, because the best teams don’t just fix hiring once, they keep refining it.

I have a challenge for you: Think about one part of your hiring process that felt broken this year. Reply and tell me, I’ll share the best (and worst) in the next issue! 🚀

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