In the competitive world of recruitment, external agencies navigate a delicate balance between delivering high-quality candidates and meeting the high-volume demands of their clients.
Employers want it all—top-tier talent and the perfect fit, particularly for sensitive or high-level roles, but they also expect it fast and at scale. Challenging? Always. Surmountable? Yes!
Playing the balancing act can take its toll on time-stretched recruiters, with many businesses struggling to meet the demands of a growing number of clients looking to hire at scale within a fast-paced employment market.
Add to the mix even more pressure to find the exact right fit for a role, given changes to Day 1 hiring rights in the UK from 2026, and it’s no surprise that recruiters are at high risk of burnout, with a recent report finding a third of recruiters describe themselves as heavily, or very heavily, physically and mentally stressed due to their workload.
So, is there a solution? Yes, there are certainly ways that agencies can adapt their work process to strike a healthier balance, that will satisfy both clients and stressed-out recruitment staff. The tension between quality and quantity has long been one of the most persistent pain points for recruitment agencies, but innovative tech solutions are set to change the situation for good.
In this article we’ll explore the root causes and dilemmas of quality vs quantity within the hiring market, and present actionable solutions for you to adopt into your own workflow.
The pressure cooker of high-volume hiring
Clients often engage recruitment agencies to fill a large number of roles quickly, particularly during periods of rapid growth, seasonal spikes or high turnover. These requests may span dozens, even hundreds, of positions across multiple departments or regions. The urgency to deliver these recruits can lead agencies to prioritise speed over thorough vetting, at the expense of quality candidates and considered background research.
High-volume hiring also stretches internal resources paper thin, and it can feel a little like throwing shots wildly into the dark to simply get the job done within the time required. Recruiters are tasked with managing multiple open roles simultaneously, which can compromise the attention and scrutiny each candidate receives. As a result, hiring decisions may rely more on a quick glance at surface-level qualifications rather than taking the (unavailable) time to build a deep understanding of each candidate’s background, behaviour and long-term suitability for the role in question.
The (steep) cost of compromising on quality
While high-volume hiring solves short-term problems, cutting corners on candidate quality can rapidly backfire. Mismatched or bad hires can equate to higher turnover of staff, reduced productivity, as well as potential damage to the client’s brand reputation and team culture. For recruitment agencies, repeated poor hires can strain client relationships and hurt long-term credibility.
What are the root causes of quality issues in recruitment? A few common reasons might include:
Inadequate screening processes due to time constraints or lack of suitable background check technology.
Over-reliance on CVs, which can be misleading or embellished, especially in the case of the 1 in 2 UK job applications which have been found to have been written using AI.
Pressure to hire quickly at scale, particularly for large corporations recruiting for contracts, emerging sectors or openings in new regions.
Poor candidate experience, which can effect engagement and retention of those waiting for applications to be processed.
These factors impact on how recruiters can realistically source high-quality candidates consistently, so how can agencies maintain top-tier standards without slowing down?
The solution: Leveraging technology for quality assurance
Modern recruitment requires modern tools. One of the most effective ways to resolve the quality vs quantity dilemma is by integrating AI-powered solutions into your recruitment workflow. Specifically, AI-powered background checks offer a compelling advantage for recruitment agencies willing to upscale their technology. The rewards could be significant, let’s break down how.
How AI-powered background checks help recruiters to achieve balance
The pace of AI technology is astounding, with artificial intelligence able to automate tasks and aid the background research process significantly. AI-enabled platforms can accelerate various stages of candidate verification, ensuring that even at high volumes, agencies don’t compromise on quality and critical factors, such as verifiable qualifications, a squeaky-clean employment history and a reputationally-sound track record.
At YOONO, we believe AI technology is the future of the recruitment industry, and that recruiters who embrace this technology early will have a significant advantage over their competitors. To convince you, consider the advantages of adopting AI background checks:
1. Speed and scale
AI tools can process background checks in minutes, rather than the days or weeks used in manual background research. Sophisticated tools act as your research assistant, scanning criminal records, employment history, education credentials, and even social media presence, both swiftly and at scale.
2. Accuracy and consistency
Unlike manual processes prone to human error, AI systems follow standardised protocols. In other words, as long as the algorithm has been built ethically and with compliant processes in mind, a good AI background check tool will apply a consistent process to all applications, reducing bias and ensuring that the standards you are checking candidates against are fair and equal across the board.
3. Reduced compliance risks
With increasingly complex data privacy laws and compliance requirements just around the corner in the UK legal landscape, there is becoming very little room for recruiters to ‘lag behind’ in legislative matters.
Rather than sending every member of your team to law school, AI tools are in-built with legally compliant measures and standards, meaning you can rest assured you will remain compliant automatically, even when hiring at volume. AI tools gather information and intelligence from external sources, such as government and legal bodies, and update their processes accordingly, so you will always stay ahead of the legal curve.
4. Deeper candidate insights
Some advanced systems, such as YOONO’s AI-powered candidate intelligence, go beyond the capacity of traditional background checks, using machine learning to detect anomalies, patterns and red flags in candidate data that might otherwise go unnoticed.
For time-strapped agencies who need to deliver quality candidates fast, this ability to circumvent potential bad hires at the pass is a game-changer, placing the emphasis on proactive hiring strategies rather than fire-fighting the fallout of bad hires later down the line.
Other sage practices to balance quality and quantity
While AI is a powerful tool, technology always works best when paired with a human-centric strategy in mind. So, while one solution to the quantity vs quality issue is to upgrade your research technology, you can also take other forms of action within your own team:
Quality-check your candidate pools: Do a little housekeeping, by building and maintaining already-engaged talent pipelines, so you're not starting from scratch with every new role. Keep in touch with candidates, keeping engagement high, so that when the right role comes along they’re likely to be more receptive.
Pre-screen early with automation: Use AI chatbots, screening questionnaires or early-stage background search to filter unqualified or poor-fit applicants early.
Implement structured interviews: Standardise interviews to fairly evaluate candidates at high-volume, while maintaining objectivity. Standardised interview questions can help an employer assess a wide range of candidate responses more clearly and fairly, while panel interviewing can help to reduce risk of affinity bias.
Help clients navigate: Your clients aren’t recruiters, so don’t expect them to understand all the ins and outs of the process without some guidance. You can help clients understand the trade-offs between speed and quality, and by doing this set realistic expectations and timelines. Happy client, happy recruiter!
High pressure…dissipated?
The pressure to hire quickly will never fully disappear. In fact, as the digital hiring market gathers pace it’s only likely that super-fast, high-volume hires will become the norm, not the exception.
But for external recruitment agencies, sacrificing quality for speed is a short-sighted strategy that can erode trust and impact client satisfaction. A single poor hire, particularly a toxic bad hire at senior level, can have a hugely detrimental impact on the recruitment agency who recommended them. So why risk it?
By embracing AI-powered background checks and rethinking internal processes, agencies can navigate the quality vs quantity paradox more effectively, delivering fast results without compromising on the talent their clients deserve.
In a market where candidate quality and hiring speed can make or break a placement, AI isn’t just nice-to-have tech wizardry, it’s becoming a competitive necessity. So don’t miss the boat. Start a YOONO search and see how AI candidate intelligence can propel your recruitment business into the future.