Recruiters have earned a fair amount of criticism for poor communication. Candidates are promised phone calls that never come. Interviews disappear into silence. Employers wait too long for updates. Feedback is vague, late or absent altogether.

There is no sophisticated defence for that. If a recruiter tells a candidate they will call on Friday, they should call on Friday. If someone has taken time out of their day to interview, they deserve to know what happened. If a client has engaged an agency and asks for an update, the agency should be able to explain what it has done, what the market is saying and what happens next.

But there is another communication failure in recruitment that receives far less scrutiny.

Clients go quiet too.

That matters because recruitment is not a one-way service in which an agency disappears into the market, performs some mysterious work and eventually returns with a shortlist. The moment a business engages an external recruiter, it creates a working relationship in which both parties hold information the other needs.

The recruiter knows what is happening in the candidate market. The client knows what is happening inside the hiring process.

When either side stops sharing that information, the process begins to deteriorate.

At first, the consequences appear minor: an unanswered email, a delayed update, another follow-up call. But as the silence continues, the effects become more serious. Candidates continue to be approached for roles that may already be close to filled. Recruiters spend days working a search whose circumstances have changed. Referees are contacted unnecessarily. Candidates are left making career decisions without a clear understanding of where they stand.

Eventually, trust gives way to risk management.

The recruiter reduces their investment. The client becomes frustrated with the lack of momentum. Candidates become sceptical of both.

And a relationship that may have started as a partnership becomes transactional.

The recruiter is often standing in the middle

Consider a specialist search.

An agency has been engaged to find someone with a relatively narrow combination of technical experience, leadership capability, location requirements and industry knowledge. The recruiter maps the market, identifies potential candidates and begins approaching people.

Many of those people are not actively looking for another job.

Some are perfectly happy where they are.

So the recruiter is not simply asking them to send a CV. They are asking them to consider whether another opportunity could improve something meaningful in their professional or personal life.

That conversation can involve salary, leadership, career direction, family, flexibility, location, project exposure, professional registration, notice periods and the risks associated with leaving an employer they already know.

Some people decline immediately. Others are curious. A smaller group progresses to interview.

Eventually, a shortlist begins to form.

Then the recruiter asks the client a straightforward question: where does the process currently stand?

The answer matters.

Perhaps an internal applicant has emerged. Perhaps another agency has introduced someone strong. Perhaps three candidates are already at interview. Perhaps the role has changed. Perhaps an offer is being prepared. Perhaps the hiring manager has decided to pause the process altogether.

The agency cannot see any of that unless the client tells them.

Without that information, the recruiter has to decide whether to commit another day, another search, another 30 approaches or another series of candidate interviews to the assignment.

That is not simply a question of whether the recruiter is willing to “work hard”. It is a question of whether they are working with an accurate understanding of the search.

If the client already has a preferred candidate, the appropriate strategy may be to slow the external search rather than contact another 50 people unnecessarily. If an internal candidate has appeared, the recruiter may still continue, but the market deserves to be approached with the right level of urgency and honesty. If the role has changed, the search itself may need to change.

None of those decisions can be made intelligently when the information only flows one way.

Candidates experience the employer through the recruiter

One of the more uncomfortable realities of agency recruitment is that a candidate often experiences the hiring organisation through the recruiter.

The recruiter explains the opportunity, communicates the organisation’s expectations, prepares the candidate for interviews and manages questions before and after each stage. In the candidate’s mind, the recruiter and employer are not entirely separate experiences.

When feedback is delayed, the candidate may not know whether the recruiter has failed to follow up or whether the hiring manager has not responded.

When the candidate asks, “Am I still being considered?”, the recruiter needs an answer.

When they ask, “Are there other candidates at final stage?”, the recruiter needs enough information to respond honestly.

A professional recruiter can certainly say, “I have followed up and I am still waiting for the client.” That is better than disappearing.

But there is a limit to how long a recruiter can explain somebody else’s silence before the process itself starts to lose credibility.

This is particularly important in specialist markets such as water and infrastructure. These are not anonymous labour markets. People move between utilities, councils, consultancies, contractors and technology providers. They attend the same conferences, work on the same programs and often encounter each other repeatedly over a career.

A poor hiring experience does not disappear when the requisition closes. People remember it.

Reference checking is where a weak process can become personally risky

Reference checks are a good example of why communication matters.

When an employer asks a candidate to provide referees, most candidates make a reasonable assumption: the organisation intends to appoint them, subject to satisfactory references and any remaining checks.

That assumption matters because references are not an administrative formality from the candidate’s perspective.

The candidate may be approaching a former manager, director, CEO, client or industry leader and asking them to invest time and professional credibility in supporting the application.

For senior candidates in particular, these are often relationships built over many years.

There are legitimate circumstances in which an organisation may reference more than one finalist. Executive appointments can involve additional due diligence. Some boards, government organisations or regulated employers have formal requirements that differ from a standard commercial hiring process.

The issue is not that those processes exist.

The issue is whether the candidate understands that is what is happening.

If two or three people are still genuinely in contention, tell them before asking them to activate their referees.

Otherwise, the candidate may believe they are effectively at offer stage when the organisation is still deciding who it prefers.

That is a very different level of certainty.

Referee fatigue is not a theoretical problem

Referees are sometimes treated as though they are an unlimited resource. They are not.

Imagine a strong candidate progressing to final stage in several recruitment processes over the course of a year. Each time, they return to the same trusted former manager and ask for another 20, 30 or 40 minutes of their time.

The referee may be happy to help. But eventually the candidate feels uncomfortable asking again, and the referee may understandably begin to tire of repeating the same information.

That is one reason we generally prefer to coordinate references ourselves, with the appropriate consent of the candidate and referee. A properly documented reference can establish the relationship once, allow targeted clarification later and reduce the need to restart the entire process unnecessarily.

There is also a more serious version of the problem.

Sometimes the strongest referee is the candidate’s current employer.

At that point, the request carries real professional risk. The manager may not know the employee is considering leaving. The candidate may ultimately remain with the organisation if the external role does not proceed. Once that current manager has been contacted, however, the confidentiality of the job search has effectively ended.

That cannot be undone.

Before asking someone to take that risk, the hiring organisation should be able to explain clearly where the process stands.

Are they genuinely preparing to appoint the candidate, subject to references?

Or are they still deciding whether they want them?

Those are not the same thing.

Why contingent recruitment can become transactional

The communication problem also has a commercial dimension.

Contingent recruitment remains a common model: the agency is paid if it successfully places the candidate. If there is no placement, there is no fee.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that arrangement. It can work very well.

But it does transfer a significant amount of commercial risk to the agency.

A recruiter may spend days mapping a market, approaching dozens or hundreds of people, interviewing candidates, preparing submissions, advising on remuneration and coordinating interviews. If the client ultimately hires an internal applicant, selects another agency’s candidate, freezes the role or changes direction, the agency may receive nothing.

That is the bargain inherent in contingent recruitment.

The difficulty arises when that model is combined with poor communication and limited commitment from the client.

A search becomes far harder to justify when it includes several of the following at once:

• multiple competing agencies;
• no exclusivity;
• undisclosed internal candidates;
• unclear interview status;
• slow or inconsistent feedback;
• repeated changes to the brief;
• no regular communication rhythm; and
• uncertainty about whether the vacancy remains genuinely open.

At that point, the agency must decide where to deploy its people and time.

That is not an excuse for bad service. A recruiter should still communicate honestly about what they are doing and whether they remain committed to the assignment.

But every professional-services business allocates resources according to confidence, probability and expected return. Recruitment businesses do the same.

If one client provides fast feedback, clear access to decision-makers and visibility of the process while another routinely goes silent, the first assignment will naturally attract greater investment.

That is how supposedly strategic recruitment relationships become transactional.

You cannot buy a partnership using the mechanics of a race

Employers sometimes complain that recruitment agencies send too many CVs, move too quickly, fail to understand the business or appear more interested in “candidate ownership” than solving the hiring problem.

Those criticisms can be valid.

But it is worth examining the engagement model that produced the behaviour.

If five agencies are briefed on the same vacancy, each knows the others may introduce a candidate first. None has complete visibility of the market. Each carries the risk of investing heavily in a search that another agency may close tomorrow.

The model naturally rewards speed.

That does not mean recruiters should abandon quality. It does mean the commercial structure is encouraging a different behaviour from a retained or exclusive search.

If a business wants deeper market mapping, structured research, targeted approaches, comprehensive candidate assessment, salary intelligence and detailed reporting, there needs to be enough mutual commitment to make that investment rational.

If recruitment is engaged transactionally, it should not be surprising when the relationship eventually feels transactional.

Why we prefer retained or exclusive search

This is one reason Telos Co typically prefers retained or exclusive arrangements for specialist assignments.

A retainer is sometimes discussed as though it is simply a recruitment fee paid earlier.

That misses most of its value.

A proper retained search changes the operating relationship.

The client commits to the process. The recruiter commits defined resources to the search. Candidates move through a controlled pathway. Communication is scheduled rather than occurring only when somebody needs something.

We typically want at least one regular client meeting each week during an active search.

The purpose is not to ask, “Have you made a decision yet?” or for the client to ask, “Have you got any CVs?”

The more useful conversation is:

What is the market telling us, and what is happening inside the hiring process?

That is where recruitment starts producing intelligence rather than simply introductions.

What a useful recruitment report should contain

A serious search should give the employer visibility beyond the final shortlist.

Depending on the assignment, a weekly report might include:

• the number of people mapped;
• priority candidates identified;
• candidates approached;
• responses received;
• recruiter interviews completed;
• candidates submitted;
• candidates who declined;
• candidates not progressing;
• salary feedback;
• location or relocation issues;
• notice-period constraints;
• common reasons for lack of interest; and
• the remaining pipeline.

Suppose a recruiter maps 108 people and approaches all of them. Twenty respond positively enough to engage. Ten are open to discussing the opportunity seriously. Six are interviewed by the recruiter. Three meet the evidence threshold for submission.

That is valuable information.

The client can begin to see whether the market is behaving as expected.

Perhaps the salary is too low.

Perhaps the title is attracting the wrong profile.

Perhaps the location is creating resistance.

Perhaps one requirement that appeared reasonable on paper has dramatically reduced the available talent pool.

Perhaps candidates with the right technical background are consistently seeking a different career proposition.

At that point, recruitment has become a form of market intelligence.

But that level of transparency only works if it is reciprocated.

The client needs to report back too

If the recruiter is expected to explain what is happening in the external market, the client must provide enough visibility into the internal process for the search to remain accurate.

That does not mean sharing every internal discussion. It means communicating material changes.

For example:

• Has a credible internal candidate emerged?
• Has another agency introduced someone who is progressing?
• Has a candidate reached final interview?
• Is an offer being prepared?
• Has the salary or scope changed?
• Has the hiring manager changed their view of what matters?
• Is the role still approved?
• Is the business still ready to hire?

Those answers determine what the recruiter should do next.

Without them, the agency may continue approaching candidates unnecessarily, and every unnecessary approach has a cost.

The recruiter loses time. The candidate loses time. The employer’s market credibility weakens.

That matters even more in a specialist market where candidates are likely to be approached repeatedly by multiple organisations and agencies.

Accountability has to work both ways

This is not an argument that recruiters should be given unlimited patience because recruitment is difficult.

Recruiters have clear responsibilities. They should communicate regularly, provide honest market feedback, update candidates promptly, protect confidentiality, explain when a search is struggling and avoid sending unsuitable CVs merely to demonstrate activity.

Clients have responsibilities too. They should provide timely candidate feedback, communicate material changes to the role, disclose relevant internal processes, keep the agency informed of interview outcomes and clarify when a preferred candidate has emerged.

Candidates also have responsibilities. They should be transparent about competing processes, communicate changes in circumstances and respect the time invested by both employers and recruiters.

The standard should be reciprocal.

The problem begins when one party demands transparency from everyone else while treating its own information as optional.

Before references begin, five things should be clear

Every recruitment process is different, but before a candidate is asked to activate their referees, I believe five questions should have clear answers:

1. Is this person genuinely the preferred candidate?
   If not, they should understand that.
2. Are other candidates still actively under consideration?
   Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with that, but it should not be hidden.
3. Have the broad employment terms been discussed?
   There is little value exhausting referees before discovering that the remuneration or conditions cannot work.
4. What exactly are the references intended to verify?
   Reference checking should address a remaining question or risk, not happen simply because a template says it comes next.
5. Does the candidate accurately understand where they stand?
   Not where the recruiter hopes they stand, or where the hiring manager believes they probably stand. Where they actually stand.

That final question alone would improve a surprising number of recruitment processes.

Before restarting a search, five other things should be clear

The same discipline should apply when an employer asks an agency to return to market after an initial search has stalled.

Before another two, three or five days are spent reconnecting with candidates, the agency should know:

• whether the role is still genuinely open;
• who is already under consideration;
• what the employer learned from the first search;
• whether the scope, salary, location or priority has changed; and
• whether the organisation is actually ready to act if the right person is found tomorrow.

If those answers are unclear, the problem may not be a shortage of candidates.

It may be the process itself.

Recruitment works best when nobody has to guess

The easiest way to recognise a transactional relationship is to look at when communication occurs.

If the client only calls when they need another CV, and the recruiter only calls when they need interview feedback, there is probably no real partnership.

A stronger relationship has a rhythm even when the news is not exciting.

“We approached another 30 people this week. Interest is materially lower than expected, and these are the three reasons we are hearing most often.”

A client might say:

“We have a credible internal applicant interviewing on Thursday. Please continue the search, but I want you to know before you commit another two days to it.”

Neither update is dramatic.

Both are valuable.

Nobody is surprised. Nobody wastes a week. Candidates are not misled. Referees are not contacted unnecessarily.

That is what good communication actually looks like.

Better recruitment is not about taking sides

It would be easy to turn this conversation into recruiters versus clients.

That would miss the point.

There are poor recruiters, poor hiring managers, poor internal processes and candidates who disappear halfway through an offer.

Everyone involved can make recruitment better or worse.

The more useful question is whether the process encourages clarity, accountability and trust.

Recruitment asks people to make consequential decisions. A candidate may leave a stable employer, relocate their family, disclose a confidential job search or ask a respected referee to support them. An employer may be appointing someone into a role responsible for people, assets, projects or millions of dollars in expenditure.

Those decisions deserve a process in which the participants know where they stand.

At Telos Co, that is why we prefer significant searches to operate as genuine partnerships: clear expectations, controlled candidate processes, regular communication, transparent reporting and honest conversations when the market tells us something needs to change.

The purpose of recruitment is not to generate the largest pile of CVs.

It is to help an organisation secure the capability it needs while helping a professional decide whether an opportunity genuinely improves their career.

That requires judgement. It requires trust. And it requires every party involved to communicate as though the outcome matters.

Because it does.

If you expect complete transparency from your recruitment partner, what information should the hiring organisation be expected to provide in return?