Episode Key Takeaways
TA teams are measured on filling vacancies, but the real win is hiring better, not bigger. One hire of the right person beats three hires of mediocre fits—especially in smaller organisations where a bad hire compounds faster than in enterprise settings.
Kieran argues that operational excellence starts with structure: invest in an TA ops specialist early, centralise processes across geographies, and build data visibility through tools like Looker. At Preply, eight thousand applicants sitting unused in the ATS represented two years of hiring targets waiting to be unlocked.
Workforce planning is broken when executives tell TA the hiring numbers a week before the quarter starts. Instead, signal hiring timelines months in advance—accounting for notice periods, interview cycles, and onboarding—so TA can build pipelines proactively rather than react.
Every candidate is a customer, whether they get hired or not. Investing in candidate experience tooling and training interviewers to see recruitment as a marketing channel (not just a hiring process) can turn rejected candidates into product users and brand advocates.
Alignment between TA strategy and business strategy requires a seat at the table during workforce planning, market-entry decisions, and financial forecasting. Without that voice early, organisations end up building R&D centres in cities with no talent pool or scaling teams that don’t match market demand.
Frequently
Asked
Questions
How do you measure quality of hire instead of just time-to-fill?
Time-to-fill is a vanity metric because the person adds no value until they’re onboarded and productive. Instead, track the full employee lifecycle: time from requisition to start, conversion rates at each stage, and post-hire performance. Probation pass rates aren’t reliable—bad managers can cause good hires to leave. Define quality for your context and correlate it to business impact.
How do you convince leadership to prioritise quality over hitting hiring targets?
Frame it as co-responsibility, not TA’s alone. Show the cost of a bad hire: turnover, rework, team morale. In smaller companies, the impact is visible faster. Use data to demonstrate that one great hire beats three mediocre ones. Make hiring an OKR for every department, not just TA. Celebrate wins together so leaders see the connection between hiring quality and their own success.
What's the first operational change to make in a scaling TA function?
Hire a TA ops specialist early—it’s uncommon in Series A but delivers massive ROI. Centralise processes across all geographies so hiring is consistent. Audit your ATS for unused applicants and fix data quality. Then invest in reporting tools so the business can see metrics that matter: pipeline health, conversion rates, time-to-start. Structure and visibility unlock efficiency.
How do you align TA strategy with business strategy?
Sit in workforce planning and strategy meetings from the start. Break down business OKRs into TA OKRs. When the business plans to enter a new market, TA should do talent landscape research first. Monthly business reviews on hiring metrics keep alignment visible. Make sure every TA initiative traces back to a business goal—even small improvements compound to 1% gains daily.
What skills should TA leaders develop to have more influence?
Learn to read a P&L statement and understand unit economics. Know which teams are growing, which markets the company is entering, and where succession risks exist. This business acumen lets you translate hiring strategy into commercial impact. You’ll see more TA leaders with finance and strategy backgrounds in the next five years—it’s becoming table stakes for the role.