Or Why Top Recruiters Often Get Overlooked and Mediocre Ones Flourish in Many Organizations
Some of the best recruiters I know are unemployed right now. Some of the worst or least capable are fully employed and getting promoted. What gives?
Yes, there are plenty of ineffective corporate recruiters who are deservedly unemployed but the surprising number of highly competent, often older recruiters whose experience no longer fits neatly into modern TA optics or cost structures highlights a broken system.
In any merit-driven profession, this would be unthinkable. In corporate talent acquisition, it’s standard operating procedure. Optics, loyalty, and alignment are routinely prioritized over merit, business knowledge and measurable performance, reinforced by KPIs that are easy to fake and are poor proxies for real outcomes.
Research from McKinsey and Bain shows that top performers in professional services can outperform average peers by 400–800%. In merit-driven fields like law or accounting, this is non-negotiable reality: elite practitioners materially change outcomes, which is why performance, judgment, and proven results matter above all else.
In talent acquisition, that same standard is applied far less often. The result: business leaders are frequently dissatisfied with TA outcomes, yet remain reluctant to raise concerns directly, constrained by internal politics, perceived HR sensitivity, and the belief that escalation won’t materially change the outcome.
–Most business leaders aren’t satisfied with their internal recruiting. Surveys show that around 70%+ of executives see talent acquisition and retention as a significant business risk, and fewer than one in three view their talent function as a real growth driver(iCims/PWC).–
Yet, many TA functions continue to reward the wrong attributes, undermining the potential for the best results. To be clear, we’re talking about corporate, not agency recruiters. Agency recruiting is Darwinian: You produce or you perish.
Corporate Recruiting: More Dilbert Than Delivery
Corporate Talent Acquisition too often prioritizes good enough over recruiting excellence. It is a function where institutional conformity, political alignment and low-friction consensus are more conducive to advancement than recruiting capability, while operators who challenge broken processes or drive results are often penalized rather than rewarded.
HR leaders have long rewarded narrative over actual execution. Polished storytelling, image and likability routinely outweigh competency and real results, allowing shallow skill to hide in plain sight, while recruiters grinding through complex, high-friction searches are unappreciated or overlooked especially if they fall outside the institutional hive mind. There simply is no diversity of thought nor is there a willingness to listen earnestly to the business functions that are frustrated and fed up yet too exhausted to complain.
This is reinforced by fuzzy, gamed KPIs that reveal little about performance. Time-to-fill(TTF) , quality of hire and true cost-per-hire (CPH) remain largely ceremonial. For instance, a genuine CPH analysis, one that captures total TA spend, including aggregate TA comp and ben, vendor reliance, marketing, systems & tools, training, and most importantly, the cost of drag of slow hiring and weaker selection, then CPH would look very different from the simplified internal calculations typically compared against agency fees.
Weak recruiters can fake it by hiding behind modern tools that enable mediocrity and condone ignorance. Plug and play ATS, LinkedIn, AI sourcing platforms, and automation can make average recruiters appear competent but they can’t manufacture judgment, negotiation prowess, or sense of urgency. Business leaders have come to accept fecklessness as par-for-the-course.
As a result, performance is inferred from presentation, process adherence, and narrative rather than demonstrated judgment under constraint There is no bar, no apprenticeship, no universally agreed definition of excellence. Anyone can don the title, hide behind dashboards and online certificates, and tell a convincing story.
As long as HR continues to hire TA partners for likability and cultural ‘fit’ while overlooking real capability and experience, the problem will persist and organizations will be left with TA teams that mistake motion for progress.
What are Some Clues That Separate Great Recruiters from Weaker Ones?
Beyond structured interviews and assessments, there are practical signals that reliably distinguish high-performing recruiters from weak ones. These signals show up in judgment, behavior under pressure, and the quality of decisions they enable, Typically, They
Operate from abundance, not scarcity.
Great recruiters don’t hoard candidates, protect information, or cling to requisitions as leverage. They share market insight freely, introduce talent even when no role is open, and are comfortable walking away from a placement if it’s not the right outcome. Their confidence comes from judgment, not control.
Are engaging and create momentum.
After a conversation with a strong recruiter, you look forward to the next one. They are present, curious, and intellectually sharp. Weak recruiters drain energy through defensiveness or posturing. Strong ones leave people clearer, aligned, and moving forward.
Think in nuance, not binaries.
Exceptional recruiters understand that businesses, roles, and people rarely fit clean categories. They distinguish requirements from preferences, articulate tradeoffs, and help teams reason through risk rather than defaulting to black-and-white thinking. They elevate decision quality, not just throughput.
Anticipate and add value beyond requisitions.
Great recruiters don’t wait to be asked. They surface talent trends, flag risks early, improve role definition and interview design, and contribute to programmatic and process improvements. Their value is not conditional on the next open role—they behave like owners of outcomes.
Act as Advisors, not Gatekeepers.
Strong recruiters guide decisions. They challenge weak assumptions, protect both candidates and companies from bad outcomes, and help hiring managers think more clearly. They are trusted advisors, not resume pass-throughs.
Can hunt AND vet talent
Many recruiters can source. Far fewer can hunt. Exceptional recruiters design original search strategies, move beyond obvious channels, and consistently surface talent others miss. Just as critical, they rigorously vet what they find—prioritizing signal over pedigree, trajectory over titles, and identifying false positives early. They don’t confuse access with assessment.
This capability is rarely learned in low-stakes environments; while great corporate recruiters can be developed internally, sustained exposure to real consequence, external competition, and outcome-based accountability most commonly found in agency settings is what forges true hunting and evaluative rigor
As For Weaker Recruiters?
They reveal themselves just as clearly, through consistent and observable behaviors, They.
Confuse motion with progress and celebrate effort over outcomes.
They equate activity with effectiveness messages sent, candidates sourced, screens completed, interviews scheduled—while avoiding accountability for real results. Quantity replaces quality. When challenged on signal or quality of hire, they retreat to effort-based justification.
Hide behind tools and process.
They speak fluently about ATS workflows and sourcing platforms but poorly about talent. Tools become a substitute for thinking. Process becomes a shield against accountability. When searches stall, they ask for more tooling rather than sharper judgment. Often producing fancy reports and spreadsheets instead of delivering on the core: developing top talent.
Accept bad inputs without resistance.
They rarely challenge incoherent role definitions, compensation mismatches, or unrealistic expectations. Flawed specs are taken at face value, then blamed on the market when failure follows. Compliance replaces ownership.
Default to simple heuristics like pedigree and pattern-matching.
Unable or unwilling to assess nuance, they lean on brand names, prior titles, and superficial similarity. Familiarity substitutes for evaluation, causing them to miss unconventional high-upside talent and advance candidates who look right but fail in practice.
Externalize blame and often don’t take accountability
When searches fail, responsibility is pushed outward—to hiring managers, candidates, timing, compensation, or “the market.” Rarely do they articulate what they misjudged, how they adapted, or what they learned. Failure is something that happened to them.
Lack composure under pressure When stretched or challenged they lose their poise and their judgement suffers. Often reacting emotionally instead of analytically. . Recruiting is partly performative—played out in front of candidates, hiring managers, and executives this loss of composure directly undermines credibility, confidence, and outcomes.
Are transactional, not advisory.
They pass resumes, relay messages, and schedule interviews but rarely influence decisions.
Operate from scarcity and self-preservation.
They hoard candidates, guard information, and treat requisitions as territory. Fear of losing relevance drives behavior rather than confidence in their value, eroding trust and outcomes over time.
The Real Divide:
Taken together, these signals reveal far more about a recruiter’s real capability than culture interviews, or perceived “culture fit” ever will. The difference between great recruiters and weak ones shows up in judgment, composure, creativity, and ownership especially when conditions are difficult.
This is why so many organizations miss out on the best recruiters: they optimize for alignment and polish instead of demonstrated judgment under real conditions.
Once you know where to look, the difference becomes obvious early—and impossible to unsee.
Conclusion
Recruiting isn’t broken because talent is scarce. It’s broken because organizations continue to select for comfort over competence. In a function that demands judgment, composure, creativity, and consequence-aware decision-making, too many teams reward polish, alignment, and low-friction behavior instead.
The result is predictable. Mediocre recruiters survive by blending in, managing optics, and playing the loyalty card. The best recruiters, those who challenge weak inputs, elevate decisions, and deliver under pressure are often sidelined because they are harder to manage, harder to evaluate, and expose weak, ineffective TA leadership
This is not a talent problem. It is a standards problem.
Until organizations define what REAL recruiting excellence actually looks like and are willing to hire, promote, and protect people “fit in.” They will continue to miss out on the very operators who could change outcomes and elevate the organization. Once you start evaluating recruiters the same way you evaluate other high-leverage professionals by judgment under constraint, not presentation the difference becomes obvious.
And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
