Every recruiter has one: the role that's been open for three months. Before you blame the market, work through these five checks. In our experience four out of five "impossible" vacancies are fixable.
1. Check the pay against reality
Search the CV database for the exact skill set and look at what those candidates say they want. If the average expectation is £4,000 above your budget, you don't have a sourcing problem — you have a pricing problem, and now you have the evidence to show your finance team.
2. Widen the geography before you widen the spec
Push the radius out in stages: 20, then 30, then 40 miles. For salaried and hybrid roles, people travel further than you think, particularly for a step up in title or money.
3. Look for adjacent skills
The perfect candidate may not exist, but someone 80% of the way there almost always does. Ask what could be trained in six weeks and search for everything else. A machine operator who's used a different brand of CNC, a nurse from a different specialism, a developer with a neighbouring language — all realistic.
4. Search for evidence rather than titles
Titles hide people. Certifications, systems, machinery and employers don't. Build your search from those instead, using the approach in our candidate search guide.
5. Fix the bits of the job you can change
- Can the shift pattern flex, even slightly?
- Is the "5 years' experience" requirement real, or a habit?
- Could it be part-time, or a job share?
- Is the degree requirement excluding brilliant, self-taught people?
6. Build a pipeline instead of a panic
For roles you know you'll need again, save the search, set an alert and keep in touch with near misses. The fastest hire you'll ever make is someone you spoke to three months ago.
None of this needs a big budget — it needs access to enough CVs and a bit of discipline. A free trial is a cheap way to test whether the people you need are actually out there.