The hire failed. So we blame the recruiter.
When accountability falls on the wrong person, the whole hiring process suffers.
In almost every company audit I’ve done as a talent consultant, I hear the same line:
👉 “We need better recruiters.”
Sometimes that’s true. But most of the time?
It’s not a recruiting problem.
It’s an organizational one.
🚩 Let’s break down the usual scenario:
The recruiter is told: “We need someone fast.”
The hiring manager gives vague input, if any.
There’s no alignment on success metrics.
The job ad is rushed out with generic buzzwords.
The interviewers are chosen at random, without sync.
Feedback is inconsistent - or worse, missing.
The offer is made based on gut feel.
The onboarding plan? “We’ll figure it out.”
Then the hire doesn’t work out.
And the first question asked is:
“Why did recruitment let this happen?”
🎯 The Real Problem?
Recruiters are expected to deliver outcomes they don’t have the levers to control.
They’re told to:
Ensure “quality of hire”
Predict retention
Find the right “culture fit”
Fill the pipeline with diverse, high-performing candidates
Speed up hiring without cutting corners
But they’re rarely empowered to:
Define what success actually looks like
Pause a poorly prepared process
Coach hiring managers who don’t engage
Fix broken interview flows
Influence onboarding or performance management
❗ This mismatch creates a silent crisis in Talent Acquisition:
Responsibility without authority.
Accountability without clarity.
Pressure without partnership.
And let me be blunt:
You can’t hire well in a system like that - no matter how skilled your recruiter is.
🧠 As a consultant, here’s what I recommend companies rethink:
✅ 1. Stop treating recruiting as order-taking.
Recruiters aren’t here to “fill roles” like items on a shopping list.
They’re strategic partners - treat them as such.
What to do:
Bring recruiters in before the req opens
Align on the business problem, not just the title
Define success together
✅ 2. Build cross-functional accountability.
A bad hire is rarely just a “TA issue.” It’s a shared failure across hiring, onboarding, leadership, and sometimes - culture.
What to do:
Hold post-mortems after failed hires (include Hiring Manager, TA, HR, team leads)
Review where misalignment happened
Make it a learning process - not a blame game
✅ 3. Give recruiters the power to say “pause.”
If the process is broken, rushing won’t fix it. But too many recruiters are afraid to raise their hand.
What to do:
Create formal checkpoints (kickoff, calibration, pre-offer)
Encourage healthy friction - it leads to better hires
Respect red flags when raised
✅ 4. Invest in manager capability.
Most hiring issues start with poor inputs - unclear JDs, lazy interviews, gut-driven decisions.
What to do:
Train hiring managers on structured hiring
Set expectations for feedback and collaboration
Use scorecards and consistent evaluation criteria
🧩 Bottom line:
If your hiring feels chaotic, the fix isn’t always “better recruiters.”
It’s a better system.
The best recruitment outcomes come from alignment, structure, and shared ownership - not heroics from TA.
And if you’re a recruiter stuck in a broken loop - You’re not alone.
Let’s shift the question from
“Why didn’t the recruiter fix it?”
to
“Where did we set the process up to fail?”
Only then can we build something that actually works.