Let’s be honest for a second.
If you work in Talent Acquisition, the job has changed more in the last couple of years than it did in the decade before that.
And not always in a good way.
Most TA teams we speak to aren’t struggling because they’re bad at hiring. They’re struggling because the environment around them has shifted fast, while expectations and ways of working haven’t really caught up.
Sound familiar?
On paper, it looks like a great time to hire.
Roles get hundreds (sometimes thousands) of applications. Jobs fill up quickly. Dashboards look busy.
But under the surface, it’s a different story.
Huge volumes of low-quality or irrelevant applications
AI-generated CVs that all sound suspiciously similar
Keyword-stuffed profiles that technically "match” but don’t actually fit
More time spent filtering than speaking to real people
What used to be a funnel now feels more like a flood.
And the frustrating bit? The strongest candidates are often buried somewhere in the middle, or never apply at all.
At the same time, many TA teams have quietly been cut back.
Fewer recruiters. Fewer coordinators. Same hiring targets. Sometimes more.
There’s now an unspoken expectation that you’ll:
Move faster
Handle more roles
Keep candidates happy
Protect employer brand
And somehow still be "strategic”
All while spending hours a day reviewing applications, chasing stakeholders, and trying to work out which profiles are real and which ones are gaming the system.
It’s no surprise so many recruiters tell us they’re starting to fall out of love with recruiting.
This is one of the biggest shifts we’re seeing.
Hiring used to run on a basic level of trust. Recruiters trusted the signals they were seeing, and candidates trusted that the process was fair and worth their time.
That trust is under pressure now.
Recruiters are understandably sceptical of inbound applications. Candidates don’t trust that their application will be seen, let alone properly considered. Everyone’s trying to protect their time, and it shows up on both sides of the hiring process.
When AI is designed properly, it can take real pressure off hiring teams.
Not by replacing recruiters. And not by pretending hiring is a purely technical problem.
But by supporting the parts of the process that are hardest to scale with humans alone:
Reviewing large volumes of inbound applications with consistency and context
Identifying who genuinely meets the brief beyond surface-level keywords
Handling early-stage qualification and repetitive admin
Surfacing relevant candidates who would never think to apply
This is where AI agents, in particular, start to make sense.
With these challenges in mind, we built our AI agents to support TA teams where the pressure is highest:
Archer helps make inbound smarter, filtering out noise and inviting only the most relevant candidates to apply.
Thena steps in when application review becomes overwhelming, helping teams spot their strongest applicants faster and with more confidence.
Chase handles early-stage sourcing, qualification, and conversations, surfacing relevant candidates who would never have thought to apply.
They’re designed to work with recruiters, not replace them. Every recommendation is explained, so teams stay in control and aligned.
We’re already seeing strong results. Hiring teams are saving hundreds of hours, reviewing fewer profiles per hire, and spending more of their time where it actually matters: speaking to candidates, partnering with hiring managers, and making good decisions.
The goal isn’t automation for its own sake. It’s fewer decisions, made with more confidence.
If recruitment feels more exhausting than it used to, that’s not a personal failure.
The rules changed. The noise increased. And many TA teams are being asked to do more with less.
Hiring isn’t broken because recruiters stopped caring. It’s strained because the systems around them stopped being fit for purpose.
Want to see how teams are tackling this in practice? Book a free, personalised demo today.