What’s Your Problem?
Recruiters, ever seen an opportunity to improve a recruitment process? you get all excited. You imagine the CEO picking you up on their shoulders and parading you around the office "All hail TA, the saviour of the business!!!".....no? Oh...ok. That bit's just me then.
But still, you get excited, you make the case, you dig through mountains of data, you come up with a solution, you scope it all out, you pitch it to leadership and they give you a huge, resounding "so what?"
Then you go home, put on your batman costume and cry in a cupboard.......Also just me??? Jeez, I think I need some therapy.
Well there's good news. It’s not that your solution is bad. It’s that you skipped a step.
You didn’t define the problem well enough.
Management consultants are masters at this. They don’t just walk into a room and say, “You should do X.” They spend a huge chunk of time diagnosing the issue, putting numbers to it, and making sure it hurts before they even talk about the solution.
That’s why founders and CEOs love them.
A great example of this in recruitment is Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. Recruiters hate it. Founders love it. Why? Because the authors (who are management consultants, not recruiters btw) do a great job of defining the hiring problem before they introduce their method. They make the pain so obvious that leadership is nodding along before they even get to the solution.
So, how do we steal this trick and use it to get leadership to listen to us?
1️⃣ Clearly Define the Problem
Be specific. Saying “our hiring process is too slow” is weak. Saying “engineering hires are taking 20% longer, delaying product launches by four weeks, costing us X in lost revenue” makes leadership sit up.
Use hard numbers. If you don’t have them, find them.
2️⃣ Get to the Root Cause
Use the Five Whys. Example: Why is time-to-hire increasing? Because we’re losing candidates late in the process. Why? Because the interview panel is too slow. Why? Because they’re overloaded. Keep going until you find the real problem.
3️⃣ Show the Business Impact
Tie it to business goals. Missed product deadlines. Increased cost per hire. Declining team performance. The more tangible, the better.
4️⃣ Get Stakeholder Buy-In Early
Speak their language. A CFO cares about cost, a CTO cares about timelines, a CEO cares about overall risk. Frame the problem in terms that matter to them.
5️⃣ Tell a Story
Consultants use storytelling for a reason. Saying “we need to speed up hiring” doesn’t land. Saying “our product launch is delayed again because we still don’t have an ML Engineer” makes it real.
So.....
Leadership teams love structured thinking. If you define the problem well enough, the solution becomes the obvious next step.
Next time you’re about to pitch a new initiative, stop. Spend time defining the real problem first. Make sure it hurts. Then, and only then, sell the solution.
Luke Update
Ashby were kind enough to invite me to one of their champion events in London to learn from other Ashby super nerds, and sneak peak some superb new features.
Huge thank you to Willem Wijnans for the invite, I learned a lot and can't wait to apply it all.
One way Ashby really stands out is it's approach to customers success. They built a really exceptional community of users who can learn from each other. Well done Willem and the gang!
Well... that's issue thirty six! If you have any questions about it, or any feedback on this issue of The Data Driven Recruiter, grab me on LinkedIn for a chat.
I'll see you next week!