Rethink Recruiting: Stop Focusing Only on Speed to Submit

I often see recruiting teams sprint for the prize: who can “submit” the fastest?  

After all, speed matters. And so, every boardroom resonates with the same refrain, “Hurry up and just get the candidates in front of the client now.” That’s the goal you’re asked to pursue.  

But as Wyatt Earp defines it best: “Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.”  

In the goal to pursue “speed”, even the best recruiting teams miss what matters most: the trust of your clients, your team’s morale, and results that you’re proud of.  

And it’s not an individual or personal belief. Years of data and experiences tell you the same story. Rushed submittals are often a risk, not a win. 

So, pause for a moment and rethink. “What if I stopped counting seconds, and started building outcomes that last?” 

This shift will separate you and your delivery team from the rest. Not the other way around.  

Why Speed Became the Norm 

Before you think of shifting your mindset to quality and results, it’s important to understand why everyone started focusing on speed. Because clients demanded it.  

Candidates today expect the hiring process to move quickly, often within two weeks. So, delivery teams started optimizing their recruiting processes for speed and responsiveness to keep clients happy and pipelines moving.  

And while speed has its place, talent acquisition is ultimately an investment in people and long-term client success. Rushing to submit candidates may keep processes moving, but it also introduces risks such as higher churn, poor client experiences, lost business opportunities, and potential damage to your brand. 

What Chasing Speed Alone Puts at Risk? 

Decades in delivery have taught me one thing: if all you measure is how fast you submit, problems will show up quickly. 

• Quality Suffers: Filling seats quickly often leads to poor “quality of hire,” which drives up attrition and undermines organizational effectiveness.  
• Candidate Experience Falls Apart: If your process is too fast, you can lose the human touch. Candidate Net Promoter Scores (cNPS), that leading firms track now, show that a rushed experience makes top talent walk away from your brand.   
• Long-Term Costs Increase: Every bad hire means going back to fix mistakes. The result that you lose client trust, hurt your team’s morale, and spend more money on replacements and downtime. 

So, what do you do instead?  

You focus on a project delivery strategy that’s fast, but also smart, meaning you take time to check for the right skills, culture fit, and long-term potential before making a hire. 

Here’s What You Should Really Measure  

• Quality of hire: Are your new hires performing, staying, and fitting the culture? Use manager feedback, performance, and retention rates to measure this, instead of relying only on your gut.  
• Candidate experience: Would your candidates recommend your hiring process? Collect feedback and track (NPS) Net Promoter Scores to know for sure. 
• Time to hire: How quickly do you move a qualified person from application to offer? Shorter times keep you competitive, but only if you don’t sacrifice quality. 
• Offer acceptance rate: Are your top candidates saying “yes” to your offers? A low rate might mean you need to rethink your pitch or compensation. 
• Interview-to-offer ratio: How many interviews does it take before someone gets an offer? Too many interviews could signal issues with your screening or job descriptions. 
• Source quality: Which channels bring you the best candidates for the least effort? Track this so you know where to focus your energy and resources. 

Tracking these KPIs helps you build a hiring process that’s efficient, candidate-friendly, and focused on long-term results, so you win on more than just speed. 

How to Get Delivery Right 

When it comes to delivering measurable impact (and avoiding short-term fixes), here are the practices I champion across global delivery teams: 

• Structured interviewing and assessment: Moving beyond resumes, our teams use behavioral and technical tests, plus AI, to ensure candidates fit both the job role and our company culture.  
• Client Integration: We develop feedback loops with hiring managers, regularly recalibrate criteria, and track post-hire success as a shared metric. 
• Continuous Process Improvement: Using real-time analytics and automation, we do measure submit speed but also dig into feedback, interview-to-offer ratios, and retention rates. 
• Talent Mapping & Market Intelligence: The market is flooded with competition. So how do we turn that to our advantage? We leverage labor market trends, compensation data, and skill-based hiring analytics to advise our clients on the best approach for long-term business goals.  

What This Means for You as a Client 

If you’re evaluating partners, it goes without saying that you want delivery that’s thorough and thoughtful. Here’s my advice: 

• Look for outcomes, not just metrics: Challenge your partners to report on retention, performance, and candidate experience, besides how fast they can fill a seat. 
• Work to keep improving: Choose delivery teams that feel like part of your own culture and support ongoing improvement. 
• Rely on analytics and market data: Use facts, industry insights, and analyst research to shape your hiring strategy. Don’t fall for assumptions.  

And Always See the Bigger Picture  

Being speedy in recruiting once felt like a win, but now it’s quality, fit, and candidate engagement that truly set you apart. Your job is to move from quick, transactional hiring to building teams that make your business stronger.  

Sure, data helps you get there, but expertise and partnership give you the results you need. 

So, the next time someone asks, “How fast can you submit?” flip the question, “How long will this hire last?”  

That’s the real measure of delivery excellence. 

If you’re ready to build teams that last, we’re always excited to get together.