Cutting through the noise: Hire like a hero in a crowded market

Hiring today is fraught with challenges and businesses everywhere are grappling with talent shortages, rising recruitment costs, lengthy hiring cycles and the persistent risk of making a bad decision when it comes to hiring someone. Candidates, meanwhile, are increasingly disengaged from traditional job boards and weary of endlessly applying for roles that consume time and lead nowhere. For small and mid-sized enterprises, the playing field can feel especially uneven against larger competitors with dedicated recruitment teams and big budgets to advertise key roles. 

The recent Hire Like a Hero: How to Source and Engage Top Talent webinar brought together Gemma Sloane, HR Consultant & Founder, Proactive HR, James Stone, General Manager, Kaizer Community and Jemma Eaton, Co-owner & Director, Purple Playground, alongside the Employment Hero team, to unpack how AI-powered smart matching technology is transforming recruitment. 

We dive into the webinar's key takeaways below.

Skills over CVs - a shift to capability-first hiring

Across industries, organisations are realising that a neatly formatted resume tells only part of the story and often hides the candidates who might be best equipped to thrive. Skills-based hiring shifts the focus to what people can actually do, aligning capability directly to role requirements. 

Innovative platforms like Employment Hero's EH Jobs leverage AI to identify these skills and present matches automatically, removing early bias and ensuring SMEs can compete with bigger players. As Sloane put it, " Sometimes hiring managers need to look beyond just the CV and in order to keep things moving and not miss out on great talent."

Solving the SME hiring challenge

SMEs make up the bulk of businesses in many markets, yet traditional recruitment models often work against them. "We wanted to eliminate the ad-posting treadmill," commented Jemma Eaton. "Posting, waiting, filtering – by the time you've found someone, they've already been snapped up by someone else."

James Stone reinforced that efficiency is crucial for smaller teams: "Most recently it was 20 days for us from start to contract, which is really good. In my view, once you push past six weeks you risk losing candidates to other businesses. SMEs need tools that help them move quickly, without compromising on finding the right fit."

EH Jobs acts like an 'always-on recruiter', continuously building a pool of pre-vetted candidates and shaving weeks off time-to-hire. It's a far cry from the old 'pay and pray' approach, where employers post an ad and hope the right people find it. "This isn't just tech for tech's sake," Eaton added. "It's about ensuring that SMEs have the same access to a strong talent pipeline as corporates."

The data is clear: candidates expect to be found

One of the most striking insights from the webinar was the marked shift in candidate behaviour. A significant portion of potential hires aren't actively scouring job boards, although they're open to the right opportunity if it comes to them. "It's like marketing to consumers," Sloane notes. "People want a personalised approach; treat every candidate like a potential customer. Even if you've made your mind up in the first five minutes, you need to nurture that relationship." EH Jobs uses cutting-edge AI technology called 'SmartMatch' which proactively presents roles that fit a candidate's skills and goals, even if they've never applied for them. In an era where attention spans are short and competition for top performers is at an all time high, this can be a decisive advantage.

Smarter hiring, stronger diversity

By removing names, CVs and prestige markers from the early screening process, AI-powered matching also helps reduce unconscious bias. This opens doors for women, minorities and career changers who might otherwise have been overlooked. "Bias is sneaky - you have to design it out of the process," said Eaton. Capability-based hiring can make diversity a built-in outcome rather than a late-stage consideration in the hiring process. As Sloane added, "You also can't forget about your current workforce - sometimes that gets overlooked. Internal people already know your values and culture, and that can sometimes be the smarter hiring choice."

Finding the hidden workforce

EH Jobs also taps into the so-called 'hidden' labour market - a pool of skilled people who aren't actively job hunting but would consider a change for the right fit. This can be game-changing in industries facing chronic shortages, including healthcare, hospitality and tech. "Sometimes the best hire you'll ever make isn't looking for you," Sloane observed, adding, "It's worth investing in passive candidates, particularly for specialised or hard-to-recruit roles. It can make such a difference finding someone with who you've already built a connection, rather than going in cold when you need them." 

As the panel summed it up: "The biggest leap forward in job matching isn't about more ads; it's simply about better matches." With tools like EH Jobs, businesses anywhere in the world can access deeper talent pools, cut their recruitment costs and make more inclusive, capability-focused hiring decisions. In a competitive, fast-changing labour market, the question for employers isn't whether they can afford to try AI-driven smart matching tech, it's whether they can afford not to.