A recruiter sitting at a desk with several CVs on the table, reviewing them on a laptop, with one candidate profile highlighted or shortlisted.

One of the most common things I hear from companies when they are hiring is:

“We are getting plenty of CVs, but we are still not finding the right candidate.”

At first, it sounds a little strange. If a company is receiving 50, 100 or even 200 applications for a position, shouldn’t finding the right person be relatively easy?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.

The problem is often not the number of CVs. The problem is how relevant those CVs are to the actual requirement.

More CVs can sometimes create more work

Let’s take a simple example.

Suppose a company is looking for a Senior .NET Developer with seven or more years of experience. The role requires specific technical skills, a particular location, and someone who can join within a reasonable timeframe.

The company receives 100 CVs.

That sounds like good news.

But after the hiring team starts going through them, they may find that many candidates don’t have the required technical experience. Some may be looking for a completely different role. Others may have salary expectations that don’t fit the budget. Some may not be available within the required timeline.

After spending several hours reviewing all those profiles, the hiring manager may finally find three or four candidates who are actually worth speaking to.

So, did the company really have 100 suitable candidates?

No.

It had 100 applications.

Those are two very different things.

This is one of the reasons I believe recruitment should be more focused on relevance rather than simply the number of profiles submitted.

The right recruitment starts with understanding the requirement

A job description gives you a starting point, but it doesn’t always tell you everything you need to know.

For example, a requirement may simply say:

“Looking for a Java Developer with 5+ years of experience.”

But there are several questions behind that requirement.

What kind of Java development?

Which frameworks are important?

Is cloud experience required?

Is the person going to work on a new project or an existing application?

Is the position remote, hybrid or completely office-based?

How quickly does the company need the person?

What is the salary range?

What kind of candidate is likely to succeed in that environment?

These details can make a big difference to the search.

The better a recruiter understands these things at the beginning, the better the chances of finding relevant candidates.

Recruitment is not just about forwarding resumes

I think this is where a recruitment partner can really add value.

A recruitment agency should not simply receive a job description, search for a few matching keywords and start forwarding resumes.

There needs to be some conversation with both sides.

The recruiter needs to understand what the employer is actually looking for. At the same time, the recruiter should also understand the candidate—what they are looking for, whether they are genuinely interested, their availability, compensation expectations and whether the opportunity makes sense for them.

That doesn’t guarantee that every candidate will be selected, of course.

But it can reduce a lot of unnecessary back and forth.

A smaller shortlist can sometimes be more useful

There is a tendency in recruitment to believe that sending more candidates increases the chance of making a placement.

I don’t necessarily agree with that.

If a hiring manager receives 30 CVs and only two are relevant, the other 28 haven’t really helped.

In fact, they may have made the process more difficult.

I’d rather see a recruiter send five reasonably well-matched candidates than 30 profiles simply because they have some keywords in common with the job description.

The objective should be to give the hiring team people worth talking to, not just more resumes to review.

Availability matters more than people sometimes realise

Another area that can easily get overlooked is candidate availability.

You may find someone who looks perfect on paper, but if the company needs someone to join in two weeks and the candidate has a three-month notice period, it may not work.

The same applies to compensation.

If the company’s budget is ₹20 lakh and the candidate is expecting ₹30 lakh, there may be very little point in taking the process forward unless both sides are flexible.

This is why a good recruitment conversation should cover more than skills and experience.

Location, notice period, compensation, work model and genuine interest are all important.

IT recruitment can be particularly challenging

Technology hiring has become increasingly specialised.

A company may not simply be looking for a “developer.” It may be looking for someone with a very specific combination of skills and experience.

For example, the requirement might involve Java and Spring Boot, .NET and Azure, SAP HCM, Salesforce, DevOps, AWS, GCP, data engineering or a particular testing framework.

Two candidates may have the same job title but completely different experience.

That’s why understanding the actual technology requirement is important before starting the search.

At TalvoraX, we work with a range of technology requirements, including software development, DevOps and cloud, SAP, Salesforce, data, QA and testing, architecture and other IT roles.

Recruitment isn’t only about technology

Of course, hiring challenges aren’t limited to IT.

Businesses also need people across Finance & Accounting, HR, Sales, Operations, Customer Support, Administration and many other functions.

The approach may be different for each of these roles.

A finance position might require experience with a particular ERP system, accounting process or industry.

A sales role might depend heavily on industry experience, territory and customer segment.

An HR role could require a combination of recruitment, employee relations, compliance or HR operations experience.

The job title alone rarely tells the whole story.

Different businesses need different hiring models

Not every company wants to hire in the same way.

Some businesses are looking for permanent employees.

Others need people for a specific project.

Some may want to start with Contract-to-Hire before making a long-term decision.

Others may simply need additional recruitment support because their internal team is already stretched.

This is why recruitment can take different forms, including permanent hiring, contract staffing, Contract-to-Hire and RPO or ongoing recruitment support.

The right approach depends on the company’s situation.

Where TalvoraX fits in

At TalvoraX Solutions, we are trying to keep our approach fairly simple.

Before looking for candidates, we want to understand what the company actually needs.

What skills are important? What experience is required? Where is the person going to work? What is the expected joining timeline? What compensation range is available?

Once we understand these things, we can start looking for candidates who are more closely aligned with the requirement.

Our focus is not on sending the largest number of CVs possible.

It is on finding candidates who make sense for the role.

We support both IT and Non-IT recruitment requirements and work with different hiring models, including permanent recruitment, contract staffing and Contract-to-Hire.

Good recruitment is about matching both sides

There is another side of recruitment that is sometimes forgotten.

A successful hire isn’t just about whether the candidate has the skills the company wants.

The opportunity also needs to make sense for the candidate.

If the location doesn’t work, the compensation isn’t aligned, the role isn’t what they expected or they aren’t genuinely interested, the hiring process can fall apart even when the CV looked perfect.

That’s why recruitment is ultimately about finding a reasonable match between what the company needs and what the candidate is looking for.

And sometimes that takes a little more work than simply matching keywords on a resume.

Final thoughts

There is nothing wrong with wanting a large candidate pool.

The problem starts when we confuse more candidates with better candidates.

Hiring teams don’t necessarily need hundreds of resumes sitting in their inbox.

They need enough relevant candidates to make a good hiring decision.

That’s the approach we are trying to build at TalvoraX.

Understand the requirement. Find relevant people. Have the right conversations. And help both sides decide whether there is a genuine fit.

If you’re currently hiring and finding it difficult to identify the right candidates, we’d be happy to understand your requirement and see if we can help.

TalvoraX Solutions
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