Will Sanders

Recruiting teams love data. Until it tells them something they don’t want to hear. You track time-to-fill, cost-per-hire, and maybe even candidate satisfaction. But are you measuring what actually impacts business outcomes? Three most overlooked recruiting metrics that separate top-tier hiring teams from the rest: ✅ Hiring Velocity Yes, how long it takes to fill a role matters. But how quickly do your top candidates move through the funnel? If your best candidates keep getting stuck at final approvals, you’re losing them to competitors​. ✅ First-Year Turnover Rate A great hiring process finds long-term fits. If 30% of your hires leave in Year 1, something is broken—in hiring criteria, onboarding, or culture fit​. ✅ Offer Acceptance Rate (OAR) If your OAR is under 80%, analyze your compensation, employer brand, and candidate experience. Losing talent at the finish line is the easiest fix—most companies ignore it​. Don't track more things. Track the RIGHT things. If your hiring process isn’t improving, you might be looking at the wrong numbers. Hit me up if you need help getting your data metrics where they should be. #peopleanalytics #hiringmetrics #recruiting

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We just signed our third client this month who shared they’re moving off the Paraform platform after disappointing results. It’s not surprising. For those who understand how talent acquisition really works, their model simply doesn’t hold up. As the TA market strengthens, that gap will only widen. Two core issues, on both sides of their marketplace, make it unsustainable: 1. Exploiting desperate TA professionals: Paraform markets itself as a path to million-dollar commissions, but the reality is stark. Nearly every recruiting professional who invests their time walks away with nothing. The ads featuring AI-generated images next to stacks of dollar signs are misleading and, frankly, embarrassing for our profession. This may attract attention in a down market when skilled recruiters are struggling, but as opportunities improve, their supply side will collapse. 2. Delivering noise instead of value to clients: Companies hiring top-tier talent don’t need 30 or 40 recruiters blindly chasing the same requisition. That only creates wasted time and inefficiency on both ends. What actually drives results is a small, focused team with the right tools, deep client knowledge, and real relationships with hiring managers. Overpromising and underdelivering erodes trust quickly, and we’re already seeing clients recognize this. 3 things: 1. There’s room for many players to succeed in this industry. 2. New models and new technology can and will disrupt staffing, especially as AI matures. 3. I never wish failure on anyone. But if you look at the fundamentals, Paraform’s trajectory resembles BountyJobs and the four other platforms that tried this model before. My prediction is that they’ll burn through their funding in the next 18 months and end up in the same place.

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The Cost of Hesitation in Hiring Delaying a hire isn’t neutral, it’s compounding risk. ➠ Each month a key role stays open, competitors capture market share (Sullivan Research) ➠ Quit rates are at a 9-year low (2.0%), meaning fewer skilled candidates are willing to jump (NY Post, 2025) ➠ Skills have a half-life of just 2–3 years, so every delay means the candidate pool is shifting under your feet (WSJ, IBM) ➠ Compensation expectations rise with inflation and market swings, so waiting often means paying more for less (BLS) Hiring is a time-sensitive decision. Hesitation doesn’t preserve optionality, it erodes it. The longer you wait, the weaker your position becomes. 📌 When it comes to hiring, is the bigger risk a mis-hire or a missed hire?

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“If he really wants to work here, then $5K shouldn’t matter…” Yepp, if you've hired, you might have said something along those lines before. After weeks of sourcing, screening, and (honestly) interviewing more candidates than I’d typically recommend, they finally found "the one". I advised the VP of Finance that the Finance Manager had another offer on the table, and exactly what compensation would close the deal. I wasn’t guessing, I knew what would get it done and what we were up against. Well, what did they decide to do? They offered $5k less. Because “if he really wants to work here…” Listen, I totally get it. Your company is fantastic, and you are recognized as one of the best places to work. You have beautiful offices, great work-life balance, and free lunches. This all sounds lovely. But you risk losing top talent. After all the time, effort, and energy you’ve invested....over $5K? Not the first time I’ve heard this logic, and unfortunately, I doubt it will be the last. So what happened? The candidate went with the competitor. They rolled out the red carpet. They offered above their salary range, increased the bonus, and even sweetened the title. And they won. Ugh! If you’re serious about hiring exceptional talent, you have to treat them exceptionally. It’s like when they ask at Chipotle, “the guac costs extra, that okay?” Have you ever said yes and regretted it? Yeah, me neither.

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If you suspected it, I am here to validate you that tech recruiting is indeed harder than it was 2 years ago. My take: Recruiting industry downsized. Recruiter headcount surged through the ZIRP era (zero interest rate policy) when money was cheap, VCs were pumping it, companies were grabbing it, hiring was rushed and recruiters scaled to the moment, grabbing high salaries, new jobs, and new recruiters entered the market. Tech layoffs crushed that for a year plus. Layoff after layoff. Startups weren’t able to secure new funding and died. Executives moved to operating on budgets, some for their first time. Every headcount was challenged. Recruiters flooded the market, lowering their salaries. Supply of recruiters exceeded demand by a lot. AI picked up and with it VC funding. The trick now is that many engineers aren’t experienced yet in ML / AI. Companies are competing for the same heads, inflating AI salaries. But also - AI puts pressure on every employee and company to be more efficient. Companies are boasting record revenue per headcount. Every headcount is challenged again. Now there is plenty of recruiting business, but still not enough to support the old recruiter count. Those who remain standing work with executives on budgets with pressure to hire more talent density per hire and compete for a narrowing talent pool. Some recruiters may find that they don’t like recruiting in this moment. It’s not the same game. That’s ok, our industry’s supply/demand curve needs some attrition. But not us at Boulevard Recruiting. We do really hard things. The bar was always excellence. We are stepping up and squarely facing the challenge of this moment.

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We talk a lot about candidate experience. But are we practicing what we preach? - Asking for CVs and duplicate applications - Using outdated documents to judge capability - Writing “competitive salary” and hoping no one notices 👀 Candidates notice. In fact, 91% of job seekers say transparency around pay influences their decision to apply. And 1 in 2 have quit a lengthy application midway because it felt like a waste of time. We can do better. → Streamline your applications → Ask for what you really need → Post your salary range This isn’t about trends. It’s about trust. Learn how to go skills-based and win the talent game. #HRLeadership #RecruiterTips #HiringWithIntegrity #SalaryTransparency #CVFree

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AI will definitely make some recruiters obsolete. This bothers me deeply. Folks who follow me know RippleHire exists because of the talent acquisition fraternity. Their ideas, challenges and trust have shaped us to be the juggernaut we are. As recruiters, we absolutely must avoid the risk of getting replaced with AI. I put this post as a primer for getting towards a path of excellence. Please share this so we can help other TA folks. AI can converse. AI can gather information. But AI cannot build trust. AI cannot understand the spark of potential. But what AI is fundamentally changing is what "human touch" needs to mean. Deep listening: Giving candidates the space to fully express themselves without interruption. Genuine curiosity: Asking questions that uncover character, motivation, and cultural fit, not just checking boxes. Empathy and trust: Responding to nervousness or frustration with understanding, creating a safe space for authentic interaction. Also, being direct and sharing information with a candidate even if it is something that would displease them. Building connection: Ensuring every candidate feels seen, heard, and valued, regardless of the outcome. Contrast this with the outdated "human touch" we must leave behind: the ego-driven stress interview, the recruiter who talks over candidates, the hiring manager whose questions are thinly veiled judgments. Because AI doesn't interrupt, AI doesn't judge, AI doesn't tire when asked the same thing by a candidate in a different way. AI provides consistent, unbiased interaction on the process side. At RippleHire, our focus is building AI that handles the logistics and bias-checks, so your team can invest their human energy where it makes the biggest difference: cultivating trust and sparking genuine conversation. That’s how TA stays strategic and indispensable. How are you using AI to eliminate the busywork and make space for truly human connection in your hiring process? #RippleHire #Leadership #Recruitment #TalentAcquisition

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