500+ applications - straight to the bin

We recently partnered with a scale-up that was drowning in success. They needed to fill two critical Engineering Manager roles but were completely paralysed.

The VP of Engineering, Alex, had 500+ applications over six months. He was spending hours every week reading resumes, only to find the same generic noise.

The problem wasn't a talent shortage. The crisis was a filtering failure caused by relying solely on job ads.

I was honest with Alex:
"Your job ads are attracting the 5% you don't want, and repelling the 95% you need."

Alex was paying a massive productivity tax on his management team. They were burned out, their product roadmap was stalled, and they were interviewing out of exhaustion, not strategic choice. The cost of reviewing 500 unsuitable CVs was far higher than the fee for one good headhunter.

Our Solution: We Shut the Door and Went Hunting

When they engaged us, we immediately disabled all general job board ads. We don't believe in sorting through noise; we believe in strategic interception for highly specific roles.

Our process is simple and surgical:

Passive Talent Interception: We focused 100% on proactive headhunting into high-performing, direct competitors. This works because our day-to-day work is networking with tech professionals; we often know who is a great fit before a job is even posted.

The Competitor Map: We mapped the exact structural fit. Identifying managers whose experience scaled teams from X to Y, matching Alex's specific needs.

The Pre-Vetted Pipeline: Alex no longer had to sift through 500+ applications. We presented him with a curated list of pre-interviewed candidates whose career trajectory was already proven within his industry and technical stack.

The Result?

Alex's team stopped wasting time filtering and started spending time on strategic engagement and ENJOYABLE interviews.

We closed the two Engineering Manager roles in an average of 7 weeks, turning a 6-month stalemate into a decisive leadership injection.

The best talent isn't applying to your ads. They're already working for your competitors. Stop paying the tax on mediocrity and start investing in surgical precision.