Blog
65 articles on guides & playbooks.
Most US postings now show pay. The range attracts, filters and anchors at once, and the wide band that attracts best wastes the most time.
Low pay and no advancement tie as the top reasons people quit, with disrespect close behind. Two of the three are ones recruiters never ask about.
Hiring managers say not quite right. That is an impression, not feedback. How to run a debrief that returns a reason you can actually source against.
The most-quoted validity figure for reference checks is a 1998 number the field could not update. What the call is genuinely good for instead.
Gemini lives inside the documents recruiters already work in, and that shapes exactly what it can do. The plays worth running, and the wall every one of them hits.
Most intake meetings collect requirements. The ones that prevent a dead search check whether the role is fillable, with public numbers, before you accept it.
Fewer people are changing jobs while demand holds, so the same candidates absorb every approach. Why reply rates are a list problem, not a message problem.
A search that never filled has a knowable cause, but only if you kept the record. What to capture while it is live, and the order to diagnose it in.
The hardest skill to hire for is judgment, not a technical one. What it leaves behind on a profile, how to write it as a must-have, and how to score it honestly.
A single search walked through stage by stage: the brief, the population, the scored slate, the verified contact, the approach, and what you still decide yourself.
How a desk of several consultants shares a candidate pool without duplicate approaches: ownership rules that hold, what shared should mean, and what happens when someone leaves.
Retained search vs contingency search, decided from the desk: what each model really buys, why the usual fill-rate claims do not hold up, and the two questions that settle it.
How to conduct salary benchmarking on a live desk: why survey data goes stale, the four sources ranked by weight, and what to do when the budget misses the market.
Diversity recruiting starts in the pool, not the shortlist: why single-channel sourcing narrows a slate, how pedigree proxies compound it, and what tooling cannot fix.
What talent intelligence is, how it differs from talent mapping and recruitment analytics, the four questions it has to answer, and what it changes on a desk.
How to score a shortlist against the brief instead of the keyword: rubric design, evidence over adjectives, calibration, and defending a slate to the client.
Four cold email infrastructure providers priced and compared for 2026, and the question none of them answer: what happens to the mailbox after it is warm?
Cold email tools compared for a recruiting desk in 2026, with prices. Six questions that separate a sales sequencer from something that can run candidate and client outreach.
What cold email infrastructure is, the bar Google and Microsoft now set for senders, and how the Instalent Email Store handles domains, mailboxes and warm-up for you.
Most AI recruiting tools still need you to open them. A few can be called directly by your assistant. That line now decides which ones earn a seat.
Every recruiting MCP server so far reads records you already have. Here is what a working one does instead, and how to judge one before you connect.
A recruitment agency growth strategy built on 2026 data: what separates firms compounding at 15%+ organic from firms holding flat, and the six levers.
What candidate engagement means, why activity metrics mislead, the four numbers that actually track it, and the candidate engagement best practices that move them.
What recruitment analytics is, why recruiting data breaks before it reaches a dashboard, and what recruitment analytics software actually does.
Boolean search strings for recruiters in 2026: the Boolean search operators Google still documents, copy-paste examples, and where a string stops paying.
The recruiting metrics that get used - quality of hire, cost per hire, time to fill vs time to hire and recruitment KPIs - with the formula for each.
Candidate follow-up automation done properly, and how to improve candidate engagement: what should run on its own, and what must stay human.
Sales Navigator for recruitment agencies, priced and assessed honestly: what the seat covers, what agency business development needs on top, and the alternatives.
A solo recruiter has to cover five jobs a 20-person agency splits between people. The operating model that makes that work, and what the growth data says.
MCP for recruiters, explained without the hype: what changed in the last year, what it does on a desk, and the questions to ask before you connect anything.
How to source software engineers now that the reqs coming back are senior, public code got noisier, and the old proof-of-work signals stopped sorting people.
The advanced tools, AI skills and techniques senior recruiters run in 2026 to find candidates and find clients: search infrastructure, signal data, MCP.
Social media recruiting works as research, not broadcast. What each platform is actually good for, why posting jobs fails, and the line you should not cross.
Talent acquisition vs recruitment, without the vague strategic-versus-tactical framing. The one testable difference, and what each actually costs to run.
Most recruitment automation software in 2026 aims at writing and chat. The chain from brief to reply is where recruitment automation tools should go instead.
What skills based hiring means in practice. It is now standard at the screen, but sourcing is the stage it has not reached - and the plays that close the gap.
Free recruiting tools go further than most vendors admit, then stop in the same three places. What the paid stack costs after that, and what replaces it.
The staffing market is growing again. For enterprise recruitment and staffing firms this is a year won on efficiency: more output from one platform.
The interview questions to ask candidates that actually predict performance, the ones to retire, and how to score answers so two interviewers reach the same verdict.
What candidate experience is, what a bad one costs in revenue, the survey bias that hides it, and the metrics and moments that actually move it.
Run outreach on several channels and the replies scatter. The pain points that quietly cost you placements, and how a unified inbox for recruiters fixes them.
Comparing Bullhorn alternatives for your agency: the real options, what a migration moves, and the two problems no ATS swap will solve.
Most AI sourcing misses because the brief is vague, not because the model is weak. The six blocks of a sourcing brief that returns a slate you can defend.
The top 10 prospecting tools for recruitment agencies, scored out of 25 on the five things an agency BD desk actually needs. Most lose the same two points.
Most recruitment strategies lists are tactics. A real strategy is a choice that excludes something - here are the five forks, what each costs, and how to pick.
The hiring process stage by stage - and why the failures are almost never in the stages themselves but in the unowned gaps between them.
Client market mapping finds every company that employs a role, then hands you the decision-makers. The market map that used to take a week, built in minutes.
What a talent pipeline is, how it differs from a talent pool, the five steps to building one, and the two clocks that quietly turn a strong one into a list.
Recruiting CRM vs ATS without the sales pitch: what an applicant tracking system does, what candidate relationship management software does, and where sourcing sits.
Verify contact data before you send. Protect your sender reputation, keep bounces under 1%, and stop cold recruiting outreach from landing in spam.
Seven candidate sourcing strategies that hold up in 2026 - sourcing channels ranked by what they cost you, and the talent sourcing strategy behind a warm bench.
What a sourcing recruiter does, how a sourcer differs from a recruiter, and the honest test for whether your desk needs a dedicated one.
The advanced ways experienced recruiters use ChatGPT: building an ICP, writing X-ray strings, mapping talent and tuning outreach - and the data wall every play hits.
How experienced recruiters use Claude to score a whole shortlist at once, break down a job spec and read interview debriefs - then run it on live candidate data.
What talent mapping is, the five-step talent mapping process, the fields that earn their place, and how a map built this way stops going stale.
What headhunting actually is, how it differs from recruiting, how executive search firms find candidates, and what the method looks like in technical hiring.
What an AI recruiting agent actually is, how it differs from a copilot, the workflows it runs end to end, and where a human stays in control.
A client prospecting playbook for recruitment agencies: find companies that are hiring, reach the decision-maker, and turn signals into signed clients.
How to source passive candidates and engage them: natural-language sourcing, verified contact enrichment, and recruiting outreach that actually lands.
Jon Jönsson introduces the Sourcing Playbook and explains how recruiters can build a more structured, repeatable candidate sourcing process.
A practical guide to AI candidate sourcing in 2026 - what it is, the five stages from brief to outreach, and how to choose a tool without the hype.
To reach the decision-maker - the VP of Engineering or Head of Talent who owns the hire - you need the right name and a verified email or phone, not a contact form.
Three short recruiting cold outreach templates - InMail and email - built on personalization and a clear ask, plus how verified contacts make them land.
Buying signals for recruiters - funding rounds, leadership moves and hiring intent - tell you which companies to pitch before the role is even public.
A recruiter's glossary of candidate enrichment, buying signals, natural-language sourcing and the other AI sourcing terms worth knowing in 2026.
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