Is Rec-Tech failing recruitment?

September 2025

I read a stat that made me jump up and double-check the source.

- 39% of new recruits leave a job in the UK within six months.

Imagine the effort and cost that goes into hiring someone - whichever route you recruit through. Then add on the time and energy spent getting that person up to speed.  And then watch it all walk out of the door.

Estimates for the cost of hiring range from 30% to 200% of their salary, depending on seniority, onboarding, opportunity cost. That's a hefty whack in anyone's money.

The stats are in a briefing note about the challenge and opportunity to improve recruitment. The paper carried a stark headline 'recruitment isn't working' - a nod I think to the infamous and much-recycled Conservative campaign poster from 1979.

It argued that too many candidates fail to find the right roles and its costing them, employers, and the wider economy countless millions. Probably billions, bearing in mind the UK recruitment sector alone is worth £43b annually.

Much of the cause (I hesitate to use the word blame) is, I think, due a rush to embrace technology as a tool to hire more effectively.

Employers have always looked for ways to hire more efficiently and there's a long line of people lining up to help them. Much of this involves tech: to match, to filter, to pre-select, even to do first round interviews.

But in the rush to be 'cutting edge' the system lost the essence of what makes recruitment succeed: fitting a square peg into a square hole not just in skills or salary, but also in social fit and organisation culture.

Tech can't magically do that.

But nor can it be ignored or dismissed as all bad. It can help democratise recruitment and, at its best, do so much more than a static ad or a job board notice.

The other stat that leapt out to me is that SMEs waste £125,000 a year on failed recruitment.

There's an opportunity for a company that can marry the best of human insight with the best of tech effectiveness..