Recruitment Pain Points: What We’re Hearing, and How You Can Solve Them
Our team talk to many hiring managers, HR leaders, and business owners across the country, and over the past few months, one thing is clear: recruiting is harder, more complex, and more time-consuming than ever.
In a recent LinkedIn video campaign, we unpacked the most common frustrations we’re hearing directly from clients.
These aren’t abstract problems—they have very real consequences: from wasted time and budget to poor team morale and missed growth targets. This blog dives deeper into those challenges and offers practical tips to help you solve them, or at the very least, gets closer to a more effective process.
CV Volume: Sifting Through the Deluge
The Problem: Hiring managers are spending hours—sometimes days—wading through endless CVs that don’t match the role requirements.
Impact: Time wasted reviewing irrelevant applications slows down the process, delays interviews, and increases the risk of losing strong candidates to faster-moving employers. Worse still, it leads to fatigue and the temptation to settle for “good enough” rather than the right fit.
Solution:
Introduce a screening process that filters candidates at the application stage. Clear must have criteria.
Clear job adverts, absolute essential requirements for the role and even basic screening questions can massively reduce irrelevant CVs.
The Cost of a Bad Hire
The Problem: Hiring someone who leaves within six months is incredibly expensive—both financially and culturally.
Impact: The cost of replacing a bad hire includes advertising costs, onboarding time, lost productivity, and potential disruption to team dynamics. It also damages confidence in the hiring process and can make managers hesitant to take risks in the future.
Solution:
Focus on improving interview structure and onboarding processes.
Check references (see below)
Incorporate probation milestones, cultural alignment checks, and feedback loops in the early weeks to ensure new hires feel engaged and supported.
-
Shortage of Industry Skills
The Problem: Certain industries are facing a real skills gap—especially in technical and specialist roles.
Impact: Hiring managers may find themselves posting roles for months with little to no qualified applicants. Project timelines stretch, teams become overworked, salaries increase and opportunities for growth are missed.
Solution:
Broaden the search to adjacent industries or upskill internal staff.
You may also need to invest in developing early-career talent through structured training programmes and apprenticeships.
Ensure package and salary is at least in line with competitors.
-
Tech Ability vs. Culture Fit
The Problem: Candidates may tick every technical box but clash with team dynamics—or they gel with the culture but lack the technical foundation.
Impact: Hiring the wrong balance affects performance, slows team output, and often leads to high turnover or internal conflict. Hiring managers often feel stuck between compromising on skill or fit.
Solution:
Separate assessments for technical ability and cultural alignment.
Culture-fit interviews, team collaboration tasks, or trial projects can provide better insight than a CV or one-off interview alone.
-
Hybrid Working Challenges
The Problem: Post-pandemic, some candidates expect (as a right?) some form of hybrid working—but expectations vary wildly.
Impact: Without clear policies or structure, candidates may turn down offers, or worse, accept and then leave once expectations don’t match reality. Managers struggle to balance team cohesion, visibility and culture fit. Clients often find offices half empty while still paying overheads.
Solution:
Be crystal clear about your hybrid working expectations in job descriptions and during interviews. Ask candidates how they like to work remotely and assess their self-motivation and communication habits.
Consider offering flexible and part-time working. Look at how your organisation manages outputs and communications while people are away from the office
-
Delays in the Hiring Process
The Problem: Lengthy interview processes and slow decision-making cause top candidates to drop out or accept other offers.
Impact: Every week a role goes unfilled costs the business in lost productivity. Managers also spend more time interviewing and firefighting rather than focusing on their core responsibilities.
Solution:
Map out your full recruitment timeline and set “must have” and “nice to have” for each role.
Identify bottlenecks—often decision delays or inconsistent availability—and set SLAs for interview feedback and next steps.
Use video technology to get all hiring managers together easily without the need for travel and “being in the same room” for initial selection and interviews.
-
Reference Checking: What’s the Point?
The Problem: References are often vague, overly positive, or simply a formality—making it hard to validate a candidate’s true performance.
Impact: Managers may feel they’re making a leap of faith, which increases anxiety about potential red flags missed in the process. Often references are avoided as the perception is they are just not worth it.
Solution: Make reference checking more structured and consistent.
Ask specific, behaviour-focused questions rather than open-ended ones.
A quick phone call is often more revealing than a templated form.
-
How Do You Pick the Right Agency?
The Problem: With so many recruitment agencies offering “similar” services, it’s hard to tell who’s actually going to deliver.
Impact: Wasted spend and time on the wrong agency can damage candidate experience and undermine trust in outsourcing altogether.
Solution: Ask agencies tough questions—how do they assess candidates, how transparent are their processes, is there a strong mix of up-to-date technology and person to person interaction?
What are their specialisms? How well do they know your sector and requirements?
Look for real partnerships, not just placements.
Arrange to meet.
-
CVs Don’t Tell the Whole Story
The Problem: It’s almost impossible to truly assess a candidate’s motivation, communication skills, and adaptability from a CV alone. With ever increasing use of AI technology assessing has become even harder.
Impact: Hiring managers may over-prioritise buzzwords or job titles, missing out on high-potential candidates who don’t present perfectly on paper.
Solution:
Incorporate short initial phone calls or video screening to assess motivation and alignment early.
Use structured scorecards to evaluate based on competencies, not just past roles.
-
Rising Operating Costs
The Problem: Employer National Insurance, minimum wage increases and inflation are all pushing up costs, at a time when many businesses are trying to streamline.
Impact: Hiring managers are caught in the middle, trying to attract and retain staff without blowing the salary budget. It often leads to turnover, burnout or underfilled roles.
Solution: Regularly benchmark salaries; understand your current costs and cost of new hires.
Consider hiring on a fixed term/temporary basis during busy times. This can often be a great way to recruit new members of the team – without committing too early and stretching budgets.
Flexibility, training, and progressive career development can lead to fulfilling staffing shortages.
Closing:
The recruitment landscape isn’t easy but there are practical, tactical ways to reduce the strain. Whether it’s streamlining processes, tightening criteria, or being smarter about where and how you hire, small changes can deliver big results.
If any of these challenges hit close to home, we’re always happy to share more detailed guidance—no hard sell, just a conversation.
Of course, we wouldn’t be highlighting these pains, unless we knew we have solutions to offer, however much of this can be done by employers, often at little cost – or saving costs. The team at ARV Solutions are here to add to your efforts, and help with our advanced processes and solutions.
contact us
