Recruiting Is Just Product Development for People
Most companies treat recruiting like they’re playing whack-a-mole. A requisition pops up, they swing at it. Another req appears, they swing again. It’s reactive, chaotic, and exhausting for everyone involved.
But what if we treated recruiting the same way we treat product development? That’s the idea behind Sprint Recruiting, and it’s changing how companies think about hiring.
Here’s the thing: traditional recruiting is failing because it tries to do everything at once. It’s like trying to cook every meal for the week simultaneously - you’ll burn something, forget ingredients, and end up ordering takeout anyway.
Sprint Recruiting borrows from agile development, breaking work into two-week sprints. But it’s not just about timeboxing - it’s about introducing intentionality through a point-based system. Think of points as your recruiting currency. When business leaders have to spend points on positions, suddenly they get very clear about what matters most.
The magic happens when you add Work-in-Progress (WIP) limits. We cap each pipeline stage at five candidates. That’s it. Five in screening, five with hiring managers, five in interviews. It sounds restrictive, but that’s the point. Just like a factory floor, when you limit work in progress, everything moves faster.
I’ve seen companies reduce their hiring cycle from 67 to 27 days using this approach. Not because they moved faster, but because they moved smarter. They stopped trying to juggle everything and focused on what mattered.
The real breakthrough comes when recruiters stop acting like order-takers and start behaving like business partners. They immerse themselves in the business, shadow the roles they’re hiring for, learn the language of their hiring managers. It’s like becoming a local instead of staying a tourist.
Implementation isn’t complex, but it requires commitment. Start small with receptive hiring managers. Build the cadence of daily standups and bi-weekly sprint meetings. Let the data guide your decisions.
The beauty of Sprint Recruiting isn’t just in its structure - it’s in how it changes the conversation. Instead of “How quickly can you fill this role?” the question becomes “How are we investing our recruiting resources to drive the business forward?”
That’s a much better conversation to have.