The Biggest Lessons from JobAdder’s Global Recruitment Benchmark Report (500+ Agencies Analysed)

James, welcome to the podcast.

Hey, Hishem, thanks to be here.

As I was saying, great to meet you. And, uh, and we're saying before this, I think what's really cool about the types of companies that you work for, being JobAdder, you guys get insights into a lot of companies, a lot of recruitment agencies. So really our goal with this conversation is you guys recently released a 2025, 2026 benchmark report. You were just telling me how a third party actually conducted this research versus you guys. I think that's definitely an interesting point to note. As you said, you guys didn't want any sort of bias or cert to go into certain conversations expecting things or maybe leading certain questions. So third party did this. We had well over 500 recruitment agencies complete this. And today we're going to talk about some of the standout insights that JobAdder, you guys, have sort of identified, highlighted to the recruitment community. And there's definitely a number of things that I found really interesting about this, and we're going to have a conversation about it. And for anyone that wants a deeper dive, that wants to really get into some of the things that JobAdder have captured here, what they've released in this report, you'll be able to go and check that out entirely for free with the link in the show notes. But James, so the people that maybe don't know who you are, don't know who JobAdder are, give us an intro and then we'll get into some of the things that we found interesting about this report.

Yeah, thanks, Hishem. So yeah, I'm James Payne. I'm the Chief Revenue Officer at JobAdder. So basically I lead all of our go-to-market functions globally, specifically, particularly around sales and customer success teams in our 3 PGOs in the UK, APAC, and in North America. Quick background, won't bore you too long. Started my life as the best of us do in recruitment. So I did 6 years at PageGroup straight on their grad scheme. Uh, so that was kind of where I cut my teeth and I spent the last 15 years working in the SaaS industry, specifically mostly in that time in the recruitment tech industry. So I've got a sort of good background of experience working with agencies of all different sizes from the big global multinationals to kind of smaller boutique you know, one-man bands and entrepreneurial businesses. And, you know, for those of you who don't know JobAdder, I'm going to spare you the elevator pitch. Check the website out. But, you know, we're a, we're a global recruitment software platform and operate in those 3 key geos like I've mentioned before.

Love it. And that's what makes this report even more interesting because this is definitely a sort of global insight, really. So why don't we start with the first one? And that is just sort of overall outlook, optimism. Feelings about their market, their business, because I'm sure this is something that you and your team get because of the position that you guys are in. It definitely is something that I get because of the position that I'm in, which is, James, what are other people saying out there? How's the market? Like, what are you seeing? So what we saw in this report, but I want us to talk about and sort of get your anecdotal feelings about this, where this comes from, which is 53% of agencies that completed this survey expected revenue growth. And 45% of people believe the industry will grow. So talk to me a bit about where you feel like that derives from, or what's driving that. Like, what are you seeing in your conversations? What are you hearing across your teams? Because clearly there's a good chunk of people in our industry that feel like there's good things that are coming and they're feeling positive, uh, although I do feel like that's recruiters through and through.

This is it, right? And, and, you know, we've got to love and admire that, right? Like, yeah, so I feel that's part— I think you're probably right. And it should be part of that, what's the word, part of the root cause as to where the optimism sits. What I was really enthused to see is that this has increased 10%. So we could take some of the bias off, you know, we all have an optimistic growth mindset because otherwise why are we in this game? And you're never going to succeed unless you believe you can win. But if we take that bias out, assuming the bias was the same from the last time we looked at the report to this time, that's up 10%. So that actually, you know, kind of anecdotally tells me that there genuinely is a more buoyant view in terms of what the output and expected revenue growth is. And one of the other things the report looks at is, you know, where's that confidence rooted from? And the kind of the overriding feedback in that is a continued demand for talent across all sectors. So that was like 75-ish% of respondents felt like And that's a pretty big jump, again, 20% up from when we looked at the report last year. So that is what I think is kind of fuelling and giving us this lovely optimistic view that we like to say. But I think there is a bit of, you know, clearly the reality check in there is optimism doesn't mean the market is easy. So we also see economic uncertainty as one of the big top challenges that could hamper that growth. So competition is up, still uncertain, still concerns around an uncertain global economic climate. But I love that sort of, you know, push for growth mindset, and we can still achieve the results and the growth that we want even in some, you know, difficult circumstances.

Yeah, I think for me, I, uh, look, you've been in this game longer than me, a long time, and We had a really interesting, we've had a really interesting few years, right? I think we had that massive boom period post-COVID, and I feel like what's sort of happening now, or has been happening, which I feel like is part of this optimism, is it sort of just leveled the playing field in terms of for you to be good in this market, for you to perform, you have to be doing a bloody good job. And I do feel like for a lot of the recruitment leaders that I speak with, What's probably happened is the people that had that massive period where they had their best year ever, and maybe they've been working in recruitment for a handful of years, not very long, they're no longer maybe around anymore. Or the people that have stuck it out are those people that have gone, you know what, there's a lot happening that isn't in my control, but the things that I can control, I'm going to focus on that, try and do the best possible job I can, really level up my game, really think about our market, what we're doing there. And I think really people probably left there going, you know what, like, for you to perform well in this market, a lot of that is down to you and what you're doing. And I think that that's part of this as well. Like, I do really believe that for you to be performing in this market, like, you just have to be doing a good job. And like, for me, I just don't do like average cuts anymore. And I think in that boom period, there was a lot of that where the demand was absolutely sky high. And in terms of the skill level, the ability, the strategy that was required was pretty minimal. And I feel like that is washed out. For me, I feel like that is part of this where there's a lot of people left who know what a good market looks like, knows that there's typical cycles, and it's like, right, let's just get to work. We need to level ourselves up. We're looking at ourselves versus looking at all the things that we can't control.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree more. And there'll be new organizations that kicked off and started in those boom times. But the other thing that's going to be more consistent across businesses who have existed for a longer period of time is the talent. You're going to have recruiters who, to your point, haven't experienced what some consultants who've been through different peaks of, you know, economic upturn and downturn have been through that level of resilience to go, no, this is a little bit more normal. And, you know, you're right, having the right skill set, resilient mindset to dig deep. But also to be entrepreneurial and find opportunities in that new normal, I think is to your, is exactly to your point. That's what's going to stand out and enable businesses to achieve that optimism in their revenue growth.

The next area that we want to talk about, which is something that we spend a lot of time speaking to recruitment companies about, helping recruitment teams about, because it is by far consistently always the biggest skill gap in recruitment teams, which is business development, sales, obviously very much your world in terms of what you do of your career. So I think the thing for me, which I think is absolutely wild, that this stat is just crazy, I think, which is only 4% of agencies say they're fully happy with their business development strategy. I just, that is just mind-boggling to me. 4%.

I mean, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. And even more of this struck me than the 4%, because in some ways, you know, if you think of yourselves as a perfectionist, am I fully happy? You know, maybe I'll never be fully happy because there's always more opportunities to find, right? But the one that really struck out for me is 50% think it's okay. You know, you got something so fundamentally important that underpins your ability to grow and achieve your goals. And enables you to differentiate from the rest of the market and win. And 50% think it's okay. And yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.

What's your just— because this will no doubt be some of the types of things that you and your sales team speak to companies about, maybe trying to understand what issues they have around executing a business development plan or strategy or how they're using the tools to help them with that. What's your just sort of anecdote? You've been in this industry market a long time. Like, what's your anecdotal thoughts on like why, like where does that come from? Like why do we think that so many people just aren't confident at all with their business development strategy? Like what's your sort of anecdotal thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think it's kind of part of the first part is in the sentence that you said, right? Which is Are they confident in their strategy? If 50% aren't, firstly, do you have a strategy? It's the first thing. And I feel like, like that, that it sounds like basic stuff, but it's a case of, you know, make calls, go find some new opportunities. But it really is about systematically programmatizing that, right? Like, what is the clear strategy? And, you know, it can't be, you know, we need to go win more clients. And then you've got to say, as part of that strategy, what is that clear systematic process of what good looks like? And then you've got to make sure that that is implemented and enforced effectively across the business, right? And I feel like, you know, implementing a clear strategy properly, executing it meticulously, you know, and then doing the— you mentioned skill, which I think is a— yeah, I tend to default more to the process and more to the programmatic, what steps are you going to take, you know, how are you going to automate those steps and all the things that you can do to, what's the word, programmatize a good strategy. But I think the other big element that you touched on there is skill, because there might be, you might be able to do the right things, but do you really have the right training enablement for consultants to be able to effectively execute that?

Yeah, I mean, we consistently see this when we speak to companies, just the lack of overall, like you said earlier, you manage the go-to-market strategy, just the sort of lack of that within recruitment organizations. And I do think that is really where a lot of companies need to start to look at and what they need to focus on clearly, because, because most people aren't, yeah, the majority aren't happy with it. Like, I'm thinking about a conversation I had yesterday, and I also think of a big part of this back to sort of, again, we're taking a bit of a snapshot of you here in terms of that boom period and, you know, the last 5 years. But I think there's a lot of people sitting there right now who are putting in the exact same inputs and using the exact same strategy that worked for them 18 months ago, 12 months ago, 24 months ago, and are getting minuscule returns compared to what they were getting 12 months ago, 24 months ago, in certain time periods. So I think for me, I feel like there would be quite a lot of that buried in there where there's, if companies are just willing to look in the mirror and go, hang on a minute, we were doing we were using these methods, we were using these methods and it helped us achieve X. Wait 2 seconds, I feel like I've frozen. Have I frozen?

Your picture has, but I can hear you fine.

Okay, wait, let me just pause there. See, I think a lot, like from my point of view, in my conversations, I do think there's probably a lot of people out there who are basically looking at what they've always done, and it's getting less and less results, or the outcomes that they've been used to having, or were having however long time ago, and it's not working. And then people really are having to go, hang on a minute, this isn't— the equation really isn't working anymore. Like, we're getting nowhere near the outcomes that we used to for these inputs. I think that's really challenging people to go, right, what is our strategy? What does work? We're gonna have to do things that maybe we haven't done before. And I feel like that again is going to really contribute to just overall lack of confidence in this development strategy. I don't know if you've run into any of that, but that is something that I probably hear quite a lot.

Yeah, I definitely, I think particularly a good example is like channel outreach too, right? Which is like, oh, let's just send more emails and you see the increasing, you know, we see it across all industries, ours as much as anyone else, the increasing, you know, amount of noise and lack of effectiveness as, as from email as a channel. Has its place, certainly. But, you know, for example, the report, the standout biggest channel to be able to drive success is the telephone. You know, if you, you may have been able to drive more success 18 months ago through email. So you've got to make sure that you're consistently adapting and adjusting your strategy based on what's working. And the other important part there is measuring what's working, right? How do you make sure you get, particularly if you multiple consultants in the business and you're going to get different performance in terms of results on business development from one to another. How do you really make sure that one, yes, having strategy is important, but two, you adjust the strategy based on what's working and you're consistently testing and learning to make sure that you're optimizing the output of the time and effort that goes in. So yeah, to your point, we see that a lot. And I think some of that's come through particularly from the channels that people are finding most effective.

Let's talk about, we're definitely going to talk about technology, AI, but I think what would be a sort of good dovetail to what we've spoken about already is then some of the interesting things that came out of what recruitment agencies shared around client and candidate expectations. Because again, a really interesting stat is what agencies shared is that 78%, basically 8% of everyone that contributed to this are just sharing that client expectations are increasing. They expect more. And that's the same on the candidate side. I think this is back to that point where I think if you're sort of average or offering an average-below service, or your service is literally speaking to people when they have a live job or when you have a candidate to speak to them about, if it is literally that, I think organizations and agencies like that, their profit margins are just going to continue to get squeezed. And those, I just think it's gonna be really hard for you to continue all that, for that to be a sustainable business. So again, I think the rising expectations for me also maps to, you have to be good. You have to be great in this market. You really need to be thinking about what do your customers actually value? What is it that you're providing them? How can you help them? How can you help them solve problems? What are the actual issues and challenges that our clients' candidates have and what can we do? Because if it is just speak to client when have person and speak to person when have job, yeah, like that's going to be a difficult business to be operating, I think, in the next 5 years.

Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree with you more. Uh, to me, I think it's, it's the true definition of the consultant in recruitment consultant, right? Like it's the, you know, what, what is that value that you're bringing to your customers and where are you consulting with them? So yeah, I couldn't agree more that it's not, it's not surprising that the expectations have increased, you know, and have the expectations just increased to, you know, back to the expectations that they always should have been and probably were, but maybe kind of changed and we had a sort of a different economic period.

Yeah. And like for me, I just think if we rise to these expectations, then what the sort of downstream element of that for me, what comes off the back of that is like you're actually viewed as a proper partner to your customers. Like you said, you can actually consult. And for me, probably the stat that you're going to see increase if we rise to these expectations is the lifetime value of your clients is going to increase.

Yeah, we see that. Tony, we see that in the report too, right? About retention comes up later in the report around retention and customer loyalties increasing, remaining consistent or increasing. Well, that's That's consistent with those two things. And the other thing is I think where an expectation increases, while that could feel like a squeeze, right? If you feel like, you know, expectations, client expectations are going up, candidate expectations going up, you could feel like it just gets harder in the middle. To me, I would look at that as an opportunity. Because if expectations are going up and you talk, you consistently come back to, you've got to be good, the opportunity there is If you're good, the expectation is higher, the barriers to entry to someone who's not as good go up, and client loyalty remains high and consistent. So for those of you who really are good, that really makes an opportunity to be able to capitalize on a higher bar. And I feel like that can help fuel the optimism around we do a really great job and that means we're going to continue to differentiate against the competitive market and grow faster.

Yeah, 100%. Well, let's, let's talk about technology and AI because this is something that obviously is on, is everyone is talking about. Obviously, uh, you guys as a provider are going to be thinking about this in your own way. So I think some of the things that came out of this, right, were like a real steep adoption in AI as a whole. You know, we've got this stat here, 86% of agencies expecting to increase their use this year. Talk to me a bit about, to not get sort of lost in the noise here, but what are the most consistent conversations that you're having with your customers, stakeholders around AI and technology? Like what, what sort of core message are you trying to give your customers at JobAdder around something that could make people, uh, I don't know, be like just pulled in loads of different directions and overwhelmed with information.

Yeah, I thought obviously this is a hot topic for us and, you know, particularly interested in, you know, the question on what are the use cases and the biggest use cases because, you know, this really gives us an opportunity to see where the application is and where we feel it's having benefit and impact. I had a really interesting conversation with someone recently who described the expectation curve of AI and this was kind of applied to all markets, not just recruitment, but I think it's really applicable, which is you sort of Start with that innovation trigger where expectations are low. Then all of a sudden you get this sort of peak of inflated expectation where there's no other word anywhere other than AI. And then this quite sharp drop-off, which he described, he was a technologist, he was our Chief Product Officer actually, who was describing this. And he described it as the trough of disillusionment, which I loved, right? Because you go, you got this huge high expectations, but time goes by, fear and uncertainty sits in the middle. And then you slowly get this, what he described as a slope of enlightenment, where you start to realize over a period of time where the, you know, the expectations and the impact and the productivity gains, you know, really start to come through to fruition. So I was encouraged to see that the adoption rates were as high as they were, you know, with, I think it was like something like 80% of respondents saying that they feel the tangible benefit is saving time. And I found the use cases particularly interesting. You know, it was streamlining admin, using AI to be able to optimize job adverts, improving engagement, which was the last subject came up pretty high too. And then some more sort of kind of workflow type items like parsing resumes and job descriptions. So I thought it was interesting because that's, it's gone up, it was like 70% last year in terms of the use and application of AI, it's gone up by 10%. But, you know, it's interesting because I still feel like that's quite high. And, you know, I think that's, it's interesting to see that that's also being backed up with where, where our customers and organizations are seeing a tangible benefit.

Yeah, I think like my sort of current perspective on this, and it will continue to evolve and change, but I think one of the consistent trends I've found when speaking to recruitment leaders, founders, is a lot of people that have gone down the sort of AI automation rabbit hole. And like you just said, expectations are high. Oh my God, this is going to be brilliant. I'm going to be able to sit there, press a couple of buttons, and then I'm going to have leads to call. I'm going to have all these different things happening, and I'm not going to have to do very much once it's set up. Consistently, I've had people tell me how that has not got anywhere near their expectations. And for the most part, I feel like people that I've spoken to have really had to get back to doing the hard yards, some of the manual work, and that's given them the best results. I just think particularly when we're looking at trying to AI and automate your way out of having to do business development, Personally, I just think you're going to be in trouble. I think there's a lot before that that we need to be looking at, like where a lot of people end up going to start with, right? What have we got? A note taker that we use in the business. Um, what are we doing to easily format CVs? Like all of the admin parts. I think that's where you want to be looking. And then I think in terms of then going down that BD route or the sales route, I think where again, AI will be really powerful and is already powerful and working for people is when it's doing the hard yards of making it easier for you to find relevant people to call or speak to. Because that is the hard yards part. Like, would you rather send 100 emails or 100 calls out to people that might be relevant? Or would you rather send 30 to people that you know what you're talking about is going to be relevant? But you're going to get the best return on the 30. So yes, for me, I think that has been the consistent thing that I've spoken to people about. And it's almost— they've sort of had to figure— they've had to learn that the hard way. They had to learn that lesson the hard way. And then they've got back to actually things I control, world-class basics, making sure if they are sending a DM, a voice note, a call, that there's a real intent behind that. And there's a real reason. And that does take time, that does take effort. And that's producing way better results for people versus, uh, let's use AI to sort of build together a list. Let's use AI to get the email written. Let's send that out to everyone. And I'm sure we'll get a couple of bites back and that result in a meeting, that result in a job, and that result in an interview, and that result in a placement. That's been consistent for me from conversations that I've had on this.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Was it, what's the expression? AI won't fix bad process.

Right.

So you still got to have, to your point, you got to have those good foundational pieces. If you, you know, BD strategy is a good, is a great example, right? We talked about it earlier. If you haven't got the right strategy or you haven't got the right level of engagement, a bit of magical sprinkle of an AI platform isn't going to fix those things. You've still got to get the right inputs and have the right structure and process. You know, and from our perspective, our stance on AI really is that we feel particularly for our target audiences that It should be something that's really embedded in the workflow and, you know, basically make sure that you can use it to be able to focus time and really in the right places. So again, that's certainly how we feel it should be supporting businesses. Love that.

So let's run this out then. One of the other parts that sort of you guys highlighted was this piece around RevOps. Tell us a bit about this, because I feel like Again, in your world, if we, you know, the SaaS world, RevOps is something that's been there for a while, right? And it's quite typical. So where, talk to us a bit about this sort of emerging part of the RevOps side of it, which I thought was quite interesting in this report.

Yeah, me too. And I really liked the question actually, because you see revenue, RevOps is a very, you're right. It's a very SaaS-based terminology, right? And I wasn't necessarily overly surprised by the first question, which is how familiar you are with RevOps. Because the fact that it is such a, you know, it is quite a SaaS-type terminology, but familiarity with the concept and the attention paid to the principles and how high that was, I thought was really fascinating because when I run revenue teams in a SaaS business and for a long time, the concept of RevOps is such a fundamental part of running an effective revenue engine. That when you think about all of the different component parts that we've just described today, we've been talking about great process, been talking about the right tools, been talking about the right data, we've been talking about the right inspection of that data, the right metrics, you know, the other part we haven't talked about, but which I'll come on to, but all of those things are fundamentally a part of the concept of RevOps. Like, how do you optimize your operations, which for me is like measurement, technology, processes, and operations to have the most effective revenue engine you can have. And to me, I feel like it's a big opportunity, actually, when you think about— particularly when you think about the application of new technology and new tools. You know, you get the processes right, you get the tooling right, you get the enablement right, and you continually tweak and optimize that with the right metrics, the right measurements, and course adjustments. It makes a tangible difference to the outcomes that you're trying to drive. So I love that it came up in the report. And my view is I've seen it becoming a more popular topic. I've seen organizations using third-party operations people where they start to rethink ops. I think recruitment ops, and maybe you've got a view on this, have always been perceived of, well, that's back office. I've made my process, like everything ops in a recruitment business is, How do we pay someone and timesheets and billing and invoicing? And it couldn't be more the other way around, right? It makes such a tangible difference to, you know, to growth and dollar impacts the first half of the funnel.

Yeah, I think, look, you guys will see this and know this more than anyone, but like for, I know obviously that whole adage of like recruitment companies used to go into organizations and say, we've got a CRM of 10,000 candidates and that's why you should be working with us. I do think there's a lot to be said in terms of when we think about differentiators. There's going to be continuous evolvement of tools. Obviously, LinkedIn really has the monopoly on data and people. So a lot of people, and we're including organizations, TA teams, are going to have access to the same data that you do. So I think the reason why I'm bringing that up is because this sort of makes sense to me where really the best companies, and I think companies really have to take this seriously, or have, yeah, have to when they're growing and scaling, which is the data that they actually own and have, they really need to be on top of and need to clean up. And that does become a competitive advantage. And that's where this RevOps piece comes in. Because we could, like, you could have a recruitment agency and I could have a recruitment agency, we could have 5,000 people who are in the same sort of market, same ecosystem, An organization could also find those 5,000 people because they have LinkedIn Recruiter. But what really makes a difference is if me and you, out of those 5,000, we've spoken to half of them and we know exactly out of the 2,500 people that we've spoken to why they do the career that they do, what do they care about, what are they driven about. It's all of that data and you only really get there and you really take this stuff seriously What makes it easier to do that is having someone that's dedicated to making sure that happens. Because if you're just focused on relying on humans, aka salespeople, they're probably going to make that harder for you. And that's just one example. But then you can look at all the other things like you said in terms of, okay, when we're market mapping, like, can we easily see we've just got a world-class candidate? Can we easily see what clients and companies they need to be in front of? And there's loads of stuff here, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is, there'll already be people like this in recruitment organizations, but having someone dedicated to really maximizing your data and some of the examples that I've said and getting the most out of your tech stack processes, making sure that if there are, if there is a lot of time being spent on admin or things that we don't feel like is optimal, then we've got someone in there that can hold, you know, be accountable for that, make the improvements and also, yeah, hold people accountable to using the system in the right way and following processes. So that's just sort of a bit of a download for me really. But I do think ultimately if you can pay it, and this is why people become, want to become less and less reliant on tools like LinkedIn, everyone's going to have access to the same people or like that. It's the, it's the other layer. And if you can get that within your house, within your CRM, within your data, and you're really good at that. And the sooner you speak to somebody like, I've just spoke to this person. My system is set up and I know exactly what I now need to do next and who I should speak to. That's just one example of how someone like this could really impact your business and ultimately get you the most out of your work. It's some of my thoughts on that. I agree.

And doing it in the most optimal way possible, right? Like we talk about increasing productivity per recruiter, increasing billing per head, you know, utilizing technology to reduce admin and enable So much of those things need to bring all of that stuff together. And that's what a really strong operational perspective on that brings. And, you know, you combine that with all of those things that you said, and I feel like it's, what's the word, it's turning things into a programmatic system rather than a scramble, is exactly partly what that function role, whether you call it ops, RevOps, whether it's a part of, you know, somebody else's remit, but the concept is I think it's pretty critical. And I was surprised at how few people had really— less about whether they're familiar with the term RevOps, but more around where they felt like there was an opportunity to pay attention, I think is the way it was, was worded in the, in the survey, to the principles and the benefits that that can have.

Yeah. And also generalizing here, but it probably isn't for the most part going to be a recruitment leader's or founder's strongest skill set. Is to sort of geek out and really make sure that these things are great. So that's the other part as well, why someone like that's going to be super valuable because it isn't probably for the most part generalizing, it isn't going to be something that either one, you enjoy or two, are great at as well. So loads of great insights there. We just picked out a handful, but if you really want to dive into this more, some great information, some great data in there. And sometimes you just need, you know, some confirmation the way that you're feeling about things, what you're seeing, the way that you're thinking about your business. You're sort of seeing that be mirrored in reports like this. Sometimes that can be a real confidence builder, or sometimes something all you need. And at the same time, there might be some things in there that you don't expect and find interesting, you can be curious about. So if you want to find out more and really dig into this, then like I said, go into the link in the show notes, and you can get access to this report entirely for free. James, thank you for joining me. Some really great conversational points there. And thanks for sharing your thoughts on this and your insights on the report. It's a great one.

Yeah, total pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.