Every week I’m speaking to in-house talent teams who say some version of the same thing:
“We put a role live on Friday afternoon and had 200 applications by Monday.”
On the surface, that sounds like success. Strong brand. Strong response. In reality, that’s where the problem starts.
Because this isn’t a sourcing issue. It’s a filtering issue. And it’s quietly slowing hiring processes down, frustrating hiring managers, and costing businesses good people.
If you’re hiring into Sales & Marketing, FMCG, or any well-branded business, attracting candidates isn’t difficult. Filtering them is.
Two hundred applications sounds positive until you actually have to work through them. Marketing candidates are, almost by definition, strong at presenting themselves — polished CVs, confident language, clear achievements.
Then you layer in AI.
Now every second application reads the same. Same structure. Same phrasing. Same “results-driven professional with a proven track record…”
The signal-to-noise ratio gets worse, not better. And while all of that’s happening, your talent team is still small. Your HRBP has fifteen other priorities. And your hiring manager — who should realistically only be involved at the final stage — is being pulled into shortlisting.
That’s not scalable. And it’s not where their time adds value.
This is where things start to break down. I had a conversation recently with a talent lead who told me their hiring manager had effectively disengaged from the process.
They’d sat through too many early-stage interviews with candidates who looked strong on paper and didn’t translate in reality.
So they took control.
Running their own LinkedIn searches. Asking for direct outreach. Trying to bypass the process. It’s understandable. It’s also inefficient. And it usually limits the search to people who are visible and active — not necessarily the best people in the market.
When that happens, you don’t just have a process problem. You have a confidence problem.
This is the bit that often gets missed.
More candidates doesn’t mean better outcomes. It just means more work.
The majority of candidates applying to your advert — particularly in a tougher market — are applying to multiple roles at once. They’re interviewing elsewhere. They’re moving quickly. And they’re often off the market before you’ve worked through your shortlist.
So even when good candidates are in the mix, the process itself can filter them out simply because it takes too long. At the same time, the candidates who tend to be the best long-term hires aren’t always applying in the first place.
They’re not actively looking. They’re open to a move, but only for the right opportunity. And they’re not sitting in a pile of 200 CVs waiting to be found.
This is where a lot of the frustration around agencies comes from.
Done poorly, recruitment adds noise.
Done properly, it removes it.
A good recruitment partner isn’t there to add more CVs into an already crowded process. They’re there to take 200 options and reduce them to five or six that are genuinely worth a hiring manager’s time.
That only works if a few things are in place.
Clear ownership of the role.
When multiple agencies are competing on the same brief, quality drops quickly. It becomes a speed exercise, not a quality one.
Honest conversations early.
Briefs shift. Salaries don’t always match the market. “Must-have” experience doesn’t always exist within budget. The best outcomes come from addressing that early.
Alignment with the talent team.
Good recruiters don’t go around internal teams — they work through them. That’s how trust is built and maintained.
Flexibility in approach.
Not every role needs full search. Sometimes it’s shortlisting support. Sometimes it’s stepping in when the process starts to stall.
AI is helping on the admin side. Note-taking, summaries, workflow — all useful. But on the candidate side, it’s having the opposite effect.
When every applicant is using the same tools to optimise their CV and cover letter, differentiation disappears. You don’t learn anything meaningful from a perfectly structured, AI-written application.
The only way to properly assess quality is still a conversation. Someone who knows the role, understands the market, and can assess beyond what’s written down.
That’s why filtering is becoming more valuable, not less.
If your business can generate 200 applications in a weekend, that’s a strong position to be in. But it becomes a problem quickly if you don’t have the structure to deal with it.
Hiring slows down. Good candidates drop out. Hiring managers lose confidence. And what started as a positive turns into friction.
The solution isn’t more candidates.
It’s better filtering, clearer processes, and knowing when to bring in support that actually reduces complexity.
The best recruitment partnerships don’t start when you can’t find anyone.
They start when the process isn’t working — whether that’s too much volume, not enough quality, or a hiring manager starting to disengage.
Because 200 applications should make hiring easier.
Not harder.