Another candidate ghosted you yesterday. Three more failed to show for their first day this week. Your hiring numbers look solid on paper, but your retention rates tell a different story entirely.
If this sounds familiar, you’re facing what most team managers discover the hard way: when candidates consistently drop out, it’s rarely about them. It’s about you.
The thing is, it’s not a candidate problem, it’s a brand problem.
We were talking with a business recently who kept blaming flaky applicants, but the pattern was too consistent.
We had to highlight to them it was a brand problem. Their proposition just wasn’t connecting with what people actually wanted.
Most job adverts read like they were written by a committee.
Generic language, corporate buzzwords, overviews that read like AI, and promises that every employer makes. But volume hiring doesn’t mean bland hiring. Your first pitch – that job advert – should aim to exclude as many candidates as it attracts.
Radical transparency matters more than polish. If your workplace is fast-paced and demanding, say so. If growth opportunities require resilience and adaptability, be explicit. The goal isn’t to attract everyone; it’s to attract the right people who’ll stay.
Consider this: engagement starts before day one – it begins with honest, compelling recruitment messaging that sets realistic expectations.
Every candidate weighs up what’s in it for them, both emotionally and practically.
Not just now, but long-term.
Yet most employer propositions focus on immediate benefits: salary, holiday entitlement, perhaps some vague mention of “development opportunities.”
Smart candidates dig deeper.
They ask themselves:
– Will I feel fulfilled?
– Can I see a future here?
– Does the culture align with my values?
When learning how to hire high volume for strategic initiatives, these emotional factors become crucial differentiators.
The problem is that only 41% of employees strongly agree that their job is important to their organisation’s mission, according to the Happiness Index.
If people can’t connect their role to something meaningful, they’ll keep looking, either during your recruitment process or shortly after starting.
Most ghosting happens because candidates mentally opt out before they formally do. It’s a trend we see when partnering with organisations as their financial services recruitment agency.
It’s not flakiness – it’s a symptom of an unclear or unconvincing employer proposition.
Think about your candidate journey. At what point do people get a genuine sense of what working for you is really like? If that moment comes during their first week rather than during recruitment, you’re too late.
Ironically, one solution is to provide more opt-out points throughout your process. Give candidates multiple opportunities to self-select out on their terms. This filters people more effectively than hoping they’ll stick around after discovering the reality doesn’t match the promise.
“We used to get frustrated by no-shows and early leavers,” one talent acquisition manager told us recently. “Then we realised we weren’t being honest about what the role actually involved. Once we started being more upfront about the challenges as well as the opportunities, our retention improved massively.”
You can polish your recruitment marketing, but it won’t hide those key cultural or operational issues.
How long before a new starter discovers that your company really only cares about hitting targets and nothing else matters? Things like this shouldn’t be a surprise on day one.
The cost of disengagement is staggering. Gallup estimates that disengagement costs the global economy trillions.
Other stats to highlight the cost of a weak proposition include:
When you get your employer proposition right, it works like a filter system.
It attracts people who’ll thrive in your environment and shows the door to those who won’t. This makes interviews smoother, reduces early attrition, and helps retention before anyone’s even started.
Understanding how to hire high volume for strategic initiatives means recognising that your employer proposition is itself a strategic initiative.
It’s not just recruitment marketing: it’s business strategy.
The best employer propositions acknowledge challenges alongside opportunities. They’re honest about what’s difficult and clear about what makes it worthwhile. They connect individual roles to organisational purpose and give people a genuine sense of belonging before they’ve even applied.
Too many teams approach employer proposition work reactively – updating job adverts when applications drop or tweaking benefits when competitors poach staff.
But when you’re learning how to hire high volume for strategic initiatives, your employer proposition needs to be proactive and purposeful.
Start with your current people and ask them these questions:
– What keeps them here?
– What nearly made them leave?
– What would they tell a friend considering joining?
Their insights reveal what’s authentic about your proposition versus what’s aspirational. (And, if they even feel comfortable sharing this at all).
Remember, only 33% of workers globally describe themselves as “thriving”.
If your employer proposition can genuinely help people thrive – and you can prove it through honest storytelling and transparent communication – you’ll stand out in a sea of generic promises.
Want to talk about your employer proposition? Get in contact or read our case study with Domestic and General.
