Hiring has never been this complex.
Just a few years ago, when hiring a CxO, a traditional recruiter with a well-manicured rolodex was called to do the job. That made sense at the time.
The job description was straightforward, the pool of viable candidates was rather unambiguous, and the recruiter worked their shortlist of contacts until they found the bullseye candidate. Recruiting was relatively simple and easy this way, and business went on as usual until the call for another bullseye came again.
Today, we’re working in volatility. We’re up against short-fuse business growth expectations, macroeconomic uncertainties, and the neverending pressure to deliver.
As a result, candidate profiles are a blend of nuance and the intangible. Job descriptions are more particular and growing by the bullet point. The entire hiring process governing this far more risk-averse.
The “bullseye” candidate we once had?
It’s now a moving target. An elusive destination incapable of standing still amidst an evolving business landscape, changing role expectations, and newer, broader, more refined skill sets.
And the numbers don’t lie. According to our recent market survey, only 9% of companies feel confident in their ability to source the right talent, a mere 5% trust their interview processes, and just 8% believe they can consistently close offers.
Translation?
Companies are struggling more than ever to find the talent they need to drive effective transformation and growth.
Where does your company’s hiring strategy fall? Is your hiring process designed to help you land a truly transformational hire? Do you know how to break through the barriers standing between you and the talent your business needs to thrive? And most importantly, do you have a strategy that actually works in today’s hiring landscape and finds that elusive bullseye candidate?
If not, it may be time to rethink everything.
We drew a portrait of the current hiring landscape.
Relentless business growth expectations, macroeconomic volatility, pressure on all sides. In addition, nuanced and intangible candidate qualities, convoluted job descriptions, and a faulty foundation/process exasperate it all.
That’s just the playing field.
Here are 5 other reasons why finding a bullseye is so challenging and different ways to think about hiring today.
If there’s one thing we know with certainty, it’s that candidate availability is rather unpredictable. One moment, the talent pool seems boundless and hard to sort through; the next, it’s nearly bone-dry, especially for highly specialized roles where competition is stiff and supply is low. (Just take a look at the tech industry as an example.)
It's no surprise that this seemingly constant fluctuation creates hiring whiplash, making it difficult to plan effectively or secure top talent before they’re gone.
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What you can do: The fastest path to the best talent is through trusted relationships. Focus on building a proactive talent pipeline instead of waiting for roles to open. Establish genuine relationships with potential candidates before you need them, leveraging strategic industry networking channels and communities. |
On one side, candidates can often lack the unique technical skills employers or the role demand. On the other, hiring teams may lack the in-depth expertise to best identify those who meet nuanced requirements or have the potential to grow into the role. This disconnect and gap can ultimately leave critical positions unfilled or, perhaps even worse, wrongly matched.
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What you can do: Start by assessing, identifying, and deeply understanding the current skills and leadership gaps within your organization to clarify what you truly need in a candidate. Focus on creating job descriptions that emphasize core skills while being open to transferable skills and growth potential. |
Industries are changing at breakneck speed—new technologies, shifting market demands, and evolving priorities are seemingly rewriting the rules overnight. Job requirements change just as fast, leaving many hiring strategies outdated before they can even really get off the ground to be effectively used.
Additionally, compensation expectations (between both candidates and hiring companies) are a moving target, hybrid and remote policies keep flip-flopping, and shifting organizational goals mean today’s “perfect role” might be irrelevant tomorrow.
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What you can do: Regularly update job descriptions and treat them like living documents to reflect current priorities and industry trends. Similarly, conduct frequent market analyses to stay competitive with compensation and benefits, as well as read up on the latest hiring trends to inform your decision-making. |
AI has become a staple in recruitment, but when misused, it often filters out exceptional candidates or reinforces biases, turning a promising tool into another potential hiring roadblock. Over-relying on AI can strip the human touch from the process—an element you cannot compromise in a relationship-driven industry. Misuse of AI might also cuase recruiters to overlook transformational talent that doesn’t fit neatly into an algorithm’s parameters.
At the same time, AI-generated or automated candidate outreach has made it harder for real opportunities to stand out. With a flood of impersonal messages filling candidates' inboxes, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for companies to capture attention and build genuine connections.
Consider This: According to another recent Hunt Club market survey, it's revealed that 84% of professionals director-level and up believe AI has made their email inbox and its contents less relevant.
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What you can do: Use purpose-built search technology designed to highlight candidate nuances and provide deeper insights. The right tools can help you visualize, extract, and analyze meaningful data, enabling you to balance automation with human judgment for smarter, faster, and more precise hiring decisions. |
Hiring today demands nuance and a deep understanding of the specific language that comes with each role. They have to be able to seek and recognize when they’ve found the unique skills and qualities that make a candidate not only qualified, but truly exceptional. It's knowledge that comes only from years of first-hand experience in the industry.
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What you can do: Bridge the gap by involving subject matter experts (SMEs) in the hiring process. This could look like training your internal talent teams on the nuances of the role or working with talent partners who bring expertise from strategy to placement. |
Finding a bullseye candidate is challenging, but it’s not impossible.
Search strategies now must be less about rifling through the rolodex to find a perfect match and more about building curated pipelines of strong candidates who fit various role archetypes. This approach helps build an ideal composite profile fit for the job.
Today, success in finding and hiring a bullseye candidate depends on three important elements:
Looking for support and expert guidance in any of these areas? Hunt Club can help make the elusive obtainable.