Recruitment rarely breaks because of one massive failure. It breaks because of dozens of small inefficiencies that add up over time.
If you’ve worked in-house, you’ll know what I mean. The brief is a bit vague. The kickoff isn’t structured. Hiring managers ghost. Job ads are rushed. Screens are inconsistent. Feedback takes days. Offers stall. None of these on their own are fatal. But together they create drag. Delay. Friction.
Which brings me to one of my favourite concepts: the aggregation of marginal gains
The Agrega....What?!?
The concept was made famous by Sir Dave Brailsford, who coached the British Cycling team from mediocre to world-dominating. His approach was to find every small area where you can improve by 1%, and compound them. Nutrition. Bike design. Recovery. Even how well they slept in hotel rooms.
James Clear referenced this same idea in Atomic Habits: "If you get 1% better each day for a year, you'll end up 37 times better by the time you're done."
It’s a powerful lens for recruitment.
And it fits perfectly with Lean and the Theory of Constraints. These frameworks don’t tell you to rip everything out and start again. They tell you to fix the blockers. Reduce waste, iterate and improve.
So what would it look like if we applied this thinking to recruitment?
The Compounding Wins in TA
Here are some examples of marginal gains that I’ve seen drive real improvement:
- Structured Kickoff Templates Adding a repeatable, structured kickoff doc (including aligned success criteria) reduces misalignment and rework. Faster time to shortlist. Fewer rewrites of job specs. Less back-and-forth. Feedback SLAs and Nudges Setting a 24–48 hour feedback SLA with nudges. Shorter time-in-process. More consistent candidate experience. Shorter Interview Loops Cutting interview processes from 6 stages to 4 by combining steps or streamlining evaluations. Higher offer acceptance. Less drop-off. More engineer hours saved. Real-Time Dashboards Set up a simple funnel dashboard (even in Sheets) to show volume, conversion, and capacity by stage. Stakeholders see the story. Better forecasting. Repurposing Work Turn job briefs into a internal FAQs. Aggregate sourcing lists into a broader talent community. Less repetition. Higher leverage on existing work.
None of these are revolutionary. But they work, especially when mushed together
Why This Matters Now
2025. Teams are lean. Budgets are tight. Every % matters.
So don't chase silver bullets. The biggest, most reliable gains I’ve seen come from the boring stuff: clear SLAs, templates, better comms, tighter feedback loops.
That’s how you build a system that scales.
Want to reduce time to hire by 20%? You probably won’t do it with one big swing. But you might do it with five 4% improvements.
And if you’re not sure where to start, here’s the simplest framework:
- Visualise the Process — Map your funnel. Find the Bottleneck — Where’s the biggest queue? Fix the Blocker — Tweak one thing. Repeat.
That’s how you scale smarter.