Before you post that advert, do the unglamorous bit first.

The recruitment brief isn't a box-ticking exercise. It's the single conversation that determines whether you hire brilliantly or spend the next four months starting over.

Here's a scenario that will be familiar to most recruiters: a hiring manager submits a request, you fire out an advert, applications roll in — and six weeks later you're back at square one because the role had quietly evolved, the team dynamics weren't what you thought, or the manager now wants something completely different to what they asked for at the start.

It's exhausting. It's avoidable. And almost every time, it traces back to the same root cause: the briefing conversation didn't go deep enough. Your role is to support them get the right hire for their team, but you need the necessary information to do so. You need to get them onboard with the why it’s important to provide wider context - I’ve been there asking for more that a manager hadn’t even thought about but because they had never been asked, so bite the bullet on probing now and it’s likely to be less of an issue going forward.

The brief isn't a form — it's a diagnosis

Most recruiters have some version of a briefing document. A template. A few standard questions about the job title, salary band, and whether you're hiring permanent or fixed-term. That's fine as a starting point. But the real brief happens in the conversation around it.

Your job in that meeting isn't to transcribe what the hiring manager tells you. It's to pressure-test it. To ask the questions they haven't thought to ask themselves. To understand not just what the role is, but why it exists, what success looks like twelve months in, and what the team genuinely needs right now.

"We need someone experienced" is not a brief. "We need someone who can hold their own in a room with senior stakeholders, because the previous person struggled with that and it cost us two key relationships" — now that's something you can recruit to.

What a strong brief actually covers

Push to understand all of the following before a single word of the advert is written:

• The role — not the job description, the real job. What does day one actually look like? What are the first three things this person needs to nail?

• The team — who are they joining? What's the dynamic? Where are the tensions? Who will they need to win over?

• The non-negotiables — what genuinely rules someone out, versus what the manager would love but could live without?

• The process — how many stages, who's involved, what format? Agree this upfront so you're not improvising later.

• The timings — when do they need someone in post? Work backwards. Is that realistic given notice periods and your current pipeline?

• Decision-making — who has final say? Is there a panel? Is there anyone who could veto a hire? Surface this now, not at offer stage.

When the manager doesn't know what good looks like

This is more common than anyone admits. Managers are often promoted because they were excellent individual contributors, not because they've spent years honing their hiring instincts. They may have a vague feeling about what they want but struggle to articulate it in a way that's useful for recruitment.

When that happens, your job shifts. You're not just a recruiter — you're a consultant. Help them get to clarity before you go to market.

A few techniques that work well: ask them to describe the best person they've ever worked with in a similar role, and what made them brilliant. Ask what the last person in this role did well, and what they'd want to be different. Show them two or three anonymised profiles and ask which direction excites them — then dig into why.

DO NOT SKIP THIS TO SAVE TIME! Starting a process where the manager doesn’t know what they are looking for can cause friction down the line and harm your candidate experience with either no hire or a poor hire at the end. It’s not comfortable or easy, but it’s necessary.

Set expectations — in writing

Once you've had the briefing conversation, summarise it back. Even a simple email confirming what was agreed — the role profile, the process, the key stages and timelines, who owns each decision — creates shared accountability. It also gives you something to refer back to when things drift, which they will.

A brief that lives only in your head is a brief that will be reinterpreted the moment the manager meets a candidate they like for reasons you didn't anticipate.

The brief is an investment, not an overhead

The best recruiters treat the briefing as one of the most valuable things they do. Not a precursor to the real work — part of it. Getting completely aligned with your hiring manager on the role, the team, the process and the timings isn't admin. It's the foundation that every good hire is built on.

Get it right, and everything that follows gets easier. Get it wrong — or skip it — and you'll be chasing clarity at every stage of the process, with a hire that nobody's quite sure they actually wanted.

Do the brief. Do it properly. Trust me, it's best for everyone if you do.

AI isn’t Going to Fix hiring…

Everywhere I look at the moment, it’s a constant stream of AI! The Talent Acquisition and Recruitment space on Linkedin is no different. It appears that everyone has a new AI tool to sell you that ‘changes the game’ or fixes the recruitment process. Sure, most hiring processes are broken and in dire need of fixing, but I’ve got some sad news for you… AI isn’t going to fix it.

Now, I’m not saying AI cannot be used to support the hiring process, especially for those responsible for it in organisations, but it’s not the silver bullet many are trying to convince you that it is. This isn’t me trying to be different to stand out, or even openly judge people for using. There are many people online that know way more about AI and the negative impacts than I do. I’m just looking to draw attention to very real issues in the hiring process that we should be prioritising as well, that AI won’t fix, but perhaps it can help you fix.

Plenty of these tools are focused on screening and interviewing, which does make sense when we know TA teams are dealing with higher volumes of applications per role and simultaneously working in smaller teams. I’m a Talent Acquisition Partner, of course I have experienced the workload issues and I’m not calling out anyone for wanting some breathing space but this isn’t the only part of the hiring process that needs addressing for better outcomes.

Now I can’t tell you for sure that the UK will follow suit and adopt a similar Act to the EU with relation to AI, where Recruitment will be considered high risk and therefore a human being will need to review and make decisions at all stages of the hiring process, but there are still important data regulation in the UK that you still need to adhere to. The Data Protection Act 2018 and GDPR strictly govern how we collect, store and use personal data. If we take the most common way we in Talent Acquisition collect, store and use the personal data of applicants, by utilising an Applicant Tracking System where you are the ‘data controller’ and the ATS company are the ‘data processor’. We, as Talent Acquisition, are responsible for GDPR compliance and therefore responsible for the use of the candidates’ personal information under the law. A candidates applies for a role at your organisation and they are agreeing for their personal data to be used as part of the hiring process for the role they are applying for, and perhaps also to be stored for Talent Pools, but you have to state this upfront. They also have the right to request their data to be deleted at any given time, for which you must abide. From what I’m seeing and hearing, this is a big area of which a lot of these tools are breaching the law here in the UK because they are putting in candidate CVs in to AI tools without their knowing or consent, and they are popping in to tools that aren’t exactly super secure, just ask Claude…

We also have the concerns around candidates utilising AI in interviews, CV and application processes, so wouldn’t it make us super hypocritical to also being using it? I think so anyway. Plus, if we have candidates using AI in an interview with an AI interviewer, and AI screening CVs that were made by AI, what are actually getting out of these processes?

What we should be prioritising

Hiring manager enablement, candidate experience and bringing the human being back in to the limelight are some of the key things I think we should be prioritising more to help getting better hiring results.

Support the hiring managers to be more effective in the hiring process, by giving them impactful training and guidance on shortlisting and interviewing. Help them understand the ‘why’ and influence them to offer better experiences for candidates, and way more impactful onboarding processes. Get them from dreading doing recruitment to being engaged and better informed. Understand how to better support them through the process and get a smoother hiring process which is likely to yield better results, whilst improving your stakeholder relationship.

Candidate experience is always a must if you want to increase your offer acceptance rate, be more attractive and also not get dragged on TikTok for your poor hiring practice. Unfortunately, I feel like the candidate experience as a topic has not only dropped away from the focus in the TA world, but actual candidate experience has also declined, and I think at least in part we can apportion some blame to AI and all the noise around that. I personally have candidate experience as my ‘why’ in my Attraction, Recruitment and Retention plan, and I am building everything off of it. I want people to feel respected and at least seen, especially at a time when the job market is so poor and there is so much noise and misinformation around about recruitment and ATS’. You won’t please everyone, and it’s not completely fool proof to preventing offer drop outs or failed hiring processes, but I can guarantee you’ll feel better at your job for it.

Both hiring manager enablement and candidate experience are bringing the human aspect of hiring to the forefront because you’re focusing on the experience of the human beings at both ends of the process. You’re hiring a human being, not a CV, and I think we all need to remember that a bit more, myself included. Humans have qualities that AI will never have, so utilise them. Recruitment has always been about people, so let’s keep it that way.

Use AI to help you with administrative tasks, help you put together some tools to support managers, maybe let it help you with your adverts. Free up your time to focus on the human parts of the role and the other key areas that need fixing, rather than utilising a plaster out of desperation because you’re being run in to the ground. Leaders – properly resource, support and respect your talent teams! It’s more than a support function that runs a process – it can be an integral cog in your organisations’ success, you just have to let it!

Let’s fix broken hiring instead of putting a plaster over it.

Redefine Success

Confidence doesn’t always arrive with a bold entrance. Sometimes, it builds quietly, step by step, as we show up for ourselves day after day. It grows when we choose to try, even when we’re unsure of the outcome. Every time you take action despite self-doubt, you reinforce the belief that you’re capable. Confidence isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about trusting that you can figure it out along the way.

The key to making things happen isn’t waiting for the perfect moment; it’s starting with what you have, where you are. Big goals can feel overwhelming when viewed all at once, but momentum builds through small, consistent action. Whether you’re working toward a personal milestone or a professional dream, progress comes from showing up — not perfectly, but persistently. Action creates clarity, and over time, those steps forward add up to something real.

You don’t need to be fearless to reach your goals, you just need to be willing. Willing to try, willing to learn, and willing to believe that you’re capable of more than you know. The road may not always be smooth, but growth rarely is. What matters most is that you keep going, keep learning, and keep believing in the version of yourself you’re becoming.