Talent Acquisition Metrics

Hiring trends between 2021 and 2024 tell an interesting story. There was a modest increase in hiring growth between 2021 and 2022 (+4.4% YoY), followed by a significant decline in 2023 (-28.1% YoY)... …likely driven by broader economic uncertainty and recession concerns. In 2024, hiring growth rebounded with a +5.8% YoY increase. This suggested a recovery as companies adapted to post-pandemic conditions and resumed growth. But when we look at company size, the data gets fascinating: The smallest companies (1−249 FTEs) saw the lowest relative reduction in hires in 2023 and bounced back the strongest in 2024. In fact, these companies are the only ones to have experienced a cumulative increase in hiring between 2021 and 2024. Their hiring volume in 2024 was 44% higher than 2021 levels… …while companies of other sizes are still seeing lower annual hiring volumes compared to 2021. Luckily, companies of almost every size saw a rebound in 2024 — though smaller enterprises (1000−4999 FTEs) have yet to catch up to their peers. What does this tell us? These fluctuations reflect how businesses are adapting to economic recovery, fluctuating demand, and competition for talent. For more insights on hiring trends shaping talent acquisition. download our 2025 Benchmarks Report: https://bit.ly/4agcr3y

I’d rather hire a designer who didn’t move any metrics, but understood what their design was meant to affect. I know designers are feeling pressured to fake the data. I’ve had people tell me directly that they’ve done it. I’ve been asked how hiring managers can tell if the metrics in a case study are real. The truth is, we can’t, not with certainty. But that’s not the most important thing. What matters more is your thinking. • Do you understand what behaviour your design was trying to influence? • Do you know which product metric that behaviour connects to? • Can you explain the business goal behind that metric? • Do you have ideas for what you’d track if the data were available? If you can think like someone who had access to the data, I don’t mind if you didn’t. But I might ask what you did to advocate for better tracking, because that’s part of the job too. Even when the data is missing, there’s still plenty to say. • What would success have looked like? • What would you have measured? • Where are the gaps, and how would better tracking have helped the team? And if tracking really isn’t possible, there are still ways to demonstrate value. You can look for qualitative signals: • What did you hear in user testing? • Did you receive unsolicited feedback from customers or support? • Did internal stakeholders start referencing or adopting your work? These aren’t perfect, but they’re real. And often more believable than inflated numbers with no context. Here’s a simple framework I suggest to designers who are missing data: 1. Advocate for better tracking. You’re not just helping the project, you’re helping your career. 2. If tracking isn’t possible, use qualitative signals to show how your work made a difference. 3. Always be able to explain where your work fits into the bigger picture and what you wish you had been able to measure. Hiring managers notice when someone understands impact, even if they didn’t have the tools to prove it. And if your story doesn’t hold up under questions, that’s a bigger red flag than missing metrics ever was. I hope that's helpful.

I've worked in #HR across the #UK, the #Netherlands and #Greece. Three markets. Three maturity levels. One clear pattern emerging in 2026. The companies winning the #talentwar this year are already doing things differently. A reality check first: The UK is roughly 3 years ahead of Greece on these shifts. The Netherlands is running even faster. This is not a criticism. It's a window of opportunity, if you move now. Trend #1: AI in hiring: most Greek companies are using it wrong. In #London and #Amsterdam, AI screening has been standard for over 2 years. In Greece, I still see teams manually sifting through 200+ CVs for a single role! But here's what the UK learned the hard way: AI is only as good as the criteria you feed it. The companies winning with AI aren't replacing human judgment. They're removing administrative noise, so HR can focus where it actually matters. Trend #2: Skills-based hiring is replacing the CV as the primary filter. In the Netherlands, over 60% of forward-thinking companies now use skills assessments before they even look at a CV. In Greece, the university name still carries disproportionate weight. That's a problem. Skills decay. Curiosity doesn't. Hire for what people can do, not where they studied. Trend #3: Wellbeing has moved from HR initiative to business metric. In the UK, wellbeing is now tracked alongside productivity and retention data. In the Netherlands, 4-day work week pilots showed output maintained or improved in the majority of companies. In Greece, wellbeing is still largely treated as a perk. The data from Northern Europe is not theoretical anymore. It is a business case. The bottom line: Talent in Greece increasingly knows what good looks like. Many have worked remotely for European companies AND They've seen the difference! The gap between what top candidates expect and what most Greek companies offer is quietly widening. The founders and HR leaders who close that gap first will hire better, retain longer and build faster. Which of these 3 trends is your organisation furthest behind on? #HRGreece #FutureOfWork #SkillsBasedHiring #AIinHR #EmployeeWellbeing #HRStrategy #Greece #UK #Netherlands #TalentManagement #2026Trends

The best candidate experience I’ve ever had when applying for opportunities didn’t make me feel like just another number It made me feel like a human being with potential, value, and a story. I’ve been through hiring processes that felt transactional, rushed, or impersonal. But I’ve also experienced ones where I felt seen, respected, supported, and genuinely excited about the possibility of joining. And that experience changed everything. Here’s what made the best one stand out: - The team clearly reviewed my background and asked meaningful, personalized questions - Expectations, timelines, and next steps were transparent, no guessing or chasing updates - From tone to timing, every interaction showed empathy, respect, and appreciation for my time - They weren’t just testing skills; they wanted to understand my ideas, career goals, and long-term interests - They didn’t just pitch the role, they shared what the mission meant to them and why the work mattered As a reminder, as much as you’re being evaluated, you’re evaluating, too. Pay close attention to every step of the process and leverage that to make an informed decision. Here’s to better, more human candidate experiences in the future, ones that leave people feeling respected, hopeful, and inspired, regardless of the outcome. #StephSynergy

Most HR leaders would hate me for saying this, but 90% of hiring metrics are useless. You don't need a dashboard with 47 KPIs. Here’s 7 numbers that actually predict whether your hiring is working: 1. Quality Applications Track how many candidates meet minimum qualifications versus total applicants. If you're getting 200 applications but only 10 are qualified, your job postings or employer brand need work. Quality beats quantity every time. 2. Time to Fill Days from requisition to accepted offer. Every day a role stays open costs productivity and team morale. Track by role type to identify bottlenecks…is sourcing slow? Interview scheduling? Decision-making? 3. Interview-to-Offer Ratio What percentage of interviewed candidates receive offers? If you're interviewing 20 people to make one offer, your screening process is broken. This reveals whether your pre-interview assessments actually work. 4. Offer Acceptance Rate What percentage of your offers get accepted? Low acceptance rates signal problems with compensation, candidate experience, or employer brand. Track by seniority level to see where you're losing top talent. 5. 90-Day Retention What percentage of new hires are still engaged and performing after 90 days? Early turnover is expensive and usually preventable. This metric reveals misalignment between expectations and reality. 6. Hiring Manager Satisfaction How do managers rate the candidates you deliver and the hiring process? Your internal customers' satisfaction predicts whether hiring best practices will stick. Low scores mean misaligned expectations. 7. Cost Per Hire All-in recruiting costs divided by hires made. Include recruiter time, tools, assessments, and external fees. Understanding true cost-per-hire enables better resource allocation and ROI discussions. TAKEAWAY: Most hiring teams measure activity instead of outcomes. These 7 metrics focus on quality, efficiency, and long-term success. Track what matters, improve what you measure.

During today’s interview, I noticed that the candidate had impressive past work experience but initially struggled to explain themselves clearly in English. So I encouraged the candidate to share their experiences in a language they felt most comfortable with. This small adjustment made a significant difference. The candidate’s confidence visibly improved, and their passion and expertise shone through as they explained their experiences in detail. It became clear that their communication skills, when not hindered by a language barrier, are strong and aligned with the role’s requirements. This experience highlights the importance of creating an inclusive and supportive environment during interviews to allow candidates to showcase their true potential. I understand that not everyone is naturally skilled at “packaging” themselves or presenting their abilities during an interview. However, this does not necessarily reflect their true capabilities or potential to perform well in the role. It’s also important to recognize that hiring someone solely based on their ability to deliver an impressive presentation doesn’t always guarantee that they can excel in the actual work. A person’s ability to perform is often better demonstrated through their passion, experience, and adaptability, rather than just their presentation skills. This reinforces the importance of creating a balanced evaluation process that considers not just how well a candidate presents themselves, but also their real skills, experience, and attitude towards work.

Most hiring benchmarks are measuring the wrong thing entirely. Everyone's obsessed with Time-to-Hire. I get it it's clean. It's trackable. It looks easy to digest on a presentation slide. But here's what I keep seeing: companies hit their Time-to-Hire targets and still wonder why their new hires aren't working out at 6 months. Because speed isn't quality. It's just speed. The benchmarks most TA teams inherit were built to satisfy finance, not to improve hiring. They measure activity: CVs sent, interviews booked, days elapsed. Not outcomes. What would actually matter? Retention at 12 months by hire source. Hiring manager satisfaction scores. Offer acceptance rate by role type. Time-to-productivity, not time-to-start. All of these make up your Quality-of-hire. None of those are hard to track. They're just inconvenient, because they hold the whole process accountable, not just the recruiter. 🤷 The teams I see doing this well have stopped defending their metrics and started questioning them.

The $2.3 million mistake just walked out the door. That's the average cost when an executive fails in their first 18 months. Yet most hiring managers are still using the same broken metrics to make these critical decisions. Here's what they're getting wrong: 1. Years of Experience ≠ Leadership Capability 20 years doing the same thing ≠ 20 years of growth. I've seen 10-year veterans outperform 30-year "experts" because they understood change, not just process. 2. Blue Blood Company Names ≠ Individual Impact A big logo on a resume doesn't tell you how they'll perform when they ARE the infrastructure. Many executives from large companies struggle without massive support systems. 3. Perfect Interview Performance ≠ Real Leadership The best leaders I know are often terrible at selling themselves. They're too busy solving problems to perfect their pitch. 4. Industry Match ≠ Cultural Fit Cross-industry leaders often bring the fresh perspective that stagnant companies desperately need. The executives who truly transform organizations rarely look perfect on paper. So what should you look for instead? They look like problems solvers, not resume builders. The real indicators of executive success? Adaptability under pressure, decision-making speed, and the ability to inspire teams through uncertainty. These don't show up in traditional metrics. What's one hiring criterion you've learned to ignore? P.S. If you're tired of expensive hiring mistakes, let's talk strategy. 15 minutes could save you millions. DM me. #ExecutiveHiring #Leadership #TalentAcquisition #HiringStrategy #ExecutiveSearch

Telecommunications hiring has an efficiency problem. Not a people problem. Not a talent shortage. An operational one. In high-volume telecoms hiring, the biggest cost drain isn’t salary. It’s time, and what happens while roles stay empty. Here’s what the data shows from a typical telecoms TA setup: ● 5-person TA team ● 5,000 applications per month ● 40 hours/week spent screening ● 49 days average time-to-fill ● £125 per day cost per vacant role That combination creates a silent cost spiral! What actually happens: ●Recruiters spend the majority of their time filtering, not hiring. ●Qualified applicants are delayed, missed, or dropped. ●Vacant roles remain open longer than the business can afford. ●Speed compromises quality, or quality compromises speed. The measurable impact when this is fixed: ●87% reduction in manual screening time. ●£30,368 saved annually in direct TA capacity. ●£330,750 recovered through faster time-to-fill. ●£40,264 gained through better matching and retention outcomes. ●£401,382 total annual efficiency gain. ●2,378% ROI when operational and strategic gains are combined. This isn’t about “doing more with less.” It’s about stopping highly paid teams doing work machines should already be doing. Telecommunications is one of the most volume-heavy, time-sensitive hiring environments there is, yet much of the process still relies on: ●Manual CV reviews ●Keyword filtering ●Human bottlenecks at the very start of the funnel The result? Slow hiring, inflated costs, and lost talent, all before interviews even begin. Efficiency in hiring isn’t a future advantage. It’s now a baseline requirement for telecoms organisations that want to scale, compete, and retain talent without burning cash or people. Sometimes the biggest gains don’t come from hiring better recruiters, they come from removing the work that never needed a human in the first place.

First Impressions Matter... Especially for Candidates! The employee experience begins the moment a candidate interacts with your business. The first interview isn’t just an interview, it’s the start of their onboarding journey. If that first interaction isn’t great, it sets the tone for everything that follows. I’m challenging businesses & hiring managers to rethink how we treat candidates. Why make them jump through hoops when they haven’t even had enough info to decide if they want to join? 💡 A shift we’ve made: We’ve agreed globally & for all level roles, to hold the hiring manager interview before the case study/task. This ensures candidates have enough information to make an informed decision before investing time in a task that might not even be relevant if they aren’t aligned with the role or team. 💭 Why does this matter? I get it, hiring managers might think, “But what if they fail the test?” The truth, candidates who meet with the hiring manager first are MORE engaged, motivated & informed allowing this to shine through in their task. There will also be less drop off from candidates who haven't had a chance to meet the most important person in the process - their future manager! Talent - Here’s how to start: 1️⃣ Audit your funnel: Where are candidates dropping off, and why? 2️⃣ Map the candidate journey: How is their experience at each stage? Are they feeling informed and valued? 3️⃣ Educate hiring managers: Candidate experience isn’t just about filling a role - it’s setting up a future employee for success. Their experience impacts engagement and retention long after they're hired. 💪 Now’s the time for action. Let’s not just hire great talent, let’s treat them right from the start. Prioritise their experience and see how it impacts conversion, engagement, and retention. 💬 I’d love to hear from you — Hiring managers, how are YOU ensuring a great candidate experience? Candidates, what’s your experience been like? Talent, what have you built in to ensure engaging interview process? Drop a comment, share your thoughts and let’s start a conversation! 👇 #CandidateExperience #EmployeeExperience #Hiring #InfluencingVoices