u/Thanklesslinkus

Not talking about perfect resumes or rehearsed interview answers.

I mean those moments where, somewhere during the process, you suddenly think:
“Yeah, this person would actually be great to work with.”

What usually creates that feeling for you? Could be attitude, communication, problem-solving, curiosity, confidence, experience, anything.

Are you mostly tracking things like time-to-fill and hires made, or do you use more structured KPIs/OKRs tied to quality of hire, retention, hiring manager satisfaction, candidate experience, etc.?

I’ve been trying to get better at reviewing resumes for junior/entry-level candidates, and it made me realize how much hiring still seems based on instinct. Some recruiters care a lot about school prestige. Others care more about internships, projects, extracurriculars, sports, communication skills, certifications, the list never ends.

So I’m curious,

Is there any solid research on what actually correlates with successful hires, especially for early-career roles? Not looking for some magic scoring formula or AI ranking system, just genuine studies/data that show what tends to matter most over time.

For example:

• Does school reputation really matter long term?
• Do internships outperform GPA?
• Are leadership activities or team sports actually predictive of performance?
• How much weight should be given to degree level vs practical work?

Would appreciate any studies, books, or even patterns people have personally noticed over time.

If a contractor or temp worker is earning, let’s say, around $50/hour, what’s the client company usually being charged on the other side?

I know agencies obviously add their margin, cover recruiting costs, admin, payroll, etc., but I’ve never really known what the typical markup looks like in practice.

Are we talking:

• small percentage increase?
• double the hourly rate?
• does it depend entirely on industry/seniority?

Would love insight from people who’ve worked agency-side or handled vendor budgets internally because I feel like this part of recruiting is weirdly opaque.

One thing I hear constantly in recruiting and hiring conversations is how expensive it is to hire someone.

Not just salary-wise, but the whole process:

• sourcing
• interviews
• recruiter time
• onboarding
• training
• lost productivity if the hire doesn’t work out

And companies always say they’d rather leave a role open longer than rush and hire the wrong person. But I’m curious what the real numbers actually look like behind the scenes.

For those involved in hiring, what does it typically cost your company to fill a role from start to finish? Does it vary massively depending on the position, or are there rough averages you’ve seen?

I know platforms like Indeed technically run on a pay-per-click model, but I’m curious what the real numbers look like once a hire is actually made.

Like when you factor in clicks, applications, drop-offs, bad fits, reposting jobs, etc… what does your true cost-per-hire usually end up being?

I’m also wondering how much it changes depending on the role.

For example, are you seeing:

• much higher costs for senior/specialized hires?
• fairly predictable costs for entry-level roles?
• huge differences between industries?

Would love to hear real experiences for anyone who's tried them.

Our internal recruiting team is hiring at pretty serious volume right now, and while we’ve improved a lot operationally, it still feels like we’re moving slower than we should.

We’ve got well over 1,000 open roles at any given time and are on track for a few thousand hires this year. On paper that sounds great, but our average time-to-fill is still sitting around the 2 - 3 month mark depending on the role.

We’ve already streamlined a lot:

• cut down early screening steps
• use digital interviews
• rely heavily on agency support and inbound applicants

But it still feels like there’s friction somewhere in the process that we haven’t solved yet.

For those working in high-volume internal recruiting teams, what actually helped you reduce hiring timelines in a meaningful way?

There’s always pressure to hire quickly, but rushing can easily lead to bad hires or a poor candidate experience.

So how are you balancing speed and quality?

What’s actually helped you keep things moving fast without breaking your process?

I’ve been sitting through a few demos for recruitment automation tools lately, and I realized that most demos feel impressive in the moment - nice UI, smooth workflows, lots of “AI-powered” everything - but once the call ends, it’s hard to tell what actually matters.

So I started keeping a short list of questions to cut through the fluff and focus on real use cases:

• How exactly does it screen and rank candidates?
• Does it plug into the tools we already use (ATS, email, calendar), or are we replacing everything?
• Can we tweak workflows for different roles, or is it one rigid setup?
• What kind of reporting do we actually get, and is it easy to access?
• How long does it take to get up and running, and what happens after onboarding?
• Are there hidden limits (jobs, users, candidates)?
• And how are they handling data security, especially if you’re hiring across regions?

It’s helped me filter out tools that look good vs tools that actually fit how we hire. Hope this helps someone on here.

I’ve been thinking about this lately and it feels a bit like a weird double standard.

Recruiters are increasingly using AI to screen resumes, filter candidates, rank profiles, etc. Totally makes sense at scale. But then when candidates use AI to tailor their resumes for a job, it’s often seen as a red flag.

I’ve actually tried some of these “AI resume tailoring” tools, and I’m kind of on the fence. On one hand, it sounds smart, match your resume to the job, improve your chances, get past filters. On the other hand, a few things didn’t sit right with me:

• it sometimes adds or tweaks details that aren’t really accurate
• a lot of the bullet points end up sounding generic or overly polished
• and if you tailor too much, it starts to feel like you’re rewriting your entire experience for each job

At some point, it stops being your resume. Also, realistically, no one’s experience perfectly matches one job description. So trying to force that alignment every single time feels a bit off.

So now I’m stuck in the middle.

If companies are using AI to screen, it feels fair that candidates use AI to optimize. But if that optimization makes resumes less authentic, I can see why recruiters might not love it.

Curious where people land on this.

I'll start - "What is something the person in this role could do in the first few months that would have the most impact?"

Totally loved this question from my candidate. I'll love to hear yours.