Our Process | Xist4 - A Data and Technology Recruitment Agency | Bristol | London

Recruitment Insight Audit

The Problem

Most organisations launch recruitment campaigns without the insight they need to succeed.

Common challenges include:

  • Salaries misaligned with the market, resulting in uncompetitive offers.

  • Job descriptions that read like wish lists instead of compelling opportunities.

  • Adverts posted once and left to fade, with no testing or optimisation.

  • Over-reliance on job boards, missing the 70% of candidates who aren’t actively looking.

The outcome?

Empty seats. Wasted spend. Declined offers. And hiring managers asking:

“Why is it so hard to find the right people?”

The Solution

Xist4’s Recruitment Insight Audit

The Recruitment Insight Audit (RIA) is a structured, evidence-based review of your current recruitment approach.

It gives you:

  • Clarity on how competitive your offer really is.

  • Insight on where your best candidates are — and where they aren’t.

  • Strategy to improve results, reduce wasted effort, and secure better hires.

Delivered in a concise, branded report, the Recruitment Insight Audit highlights strengths, pinpoints gaps, and provides practical recommendations you can act on immediately.

 

What You’ll Get

Every Recruitment Insight Audit provides a detailed, evidence-based review of your hiring activity — turning guesswork into actionable strategy.

Your report includes:

1. Executive Summary
A concise overview of your recruitment health, highlighting key strengths, gaps, and priority actions.

2. Narrative Overview
An at-a-glance explanation of what’s working, what’s slowing you down, and the quick wins that will improve results.

3. Readiness Scorecard
A visual Red-Amber-Green assessment showing how your current hiring performance compares to best practice.

4. Nine-Pillar Analysis
A deep dive into the areas that most influence your hiring success, including:

  • Role, salary, and benefits alignment

  • Job description and advert quality

  • Channel effectiveness and sourcing mix

  • Talent mapping and market reach

  • Candidate journey and interview process

  • EVP and employer brand clarity

  • Time-to-hire metrics and funnel data

5. 4-Week Posting & Optimisation Plan
A practical roadmap showing where, when, and how to advertise — complete with A/B testing guidance, posting cadence, and channel prioritisation.

6. Strategic Recommendations
Specific, measurable actions designed to improve speed, cost-per-hire, and candidate engagement within four weeks.

 

What This Means for You

You’ll walk away with a bespoke report, not a template — designed to give you:

  • Clarity on your current recruitment performance

  • Data to benchmark against market best practice

  • Clear steps to shorten time-to-hire and improve conversion

  • Tools you can use straight away to build stronger pipelines

Recruiting for a Key Role? Start with Insight.

Before you launch a campaign, know the market. Our Recruitment Insight Audit (RIA) gives you clarity on salaries, job descriptions, sourcing channels, and candidate engagement — so you can recruit with confidence.

Book My Recruitment Insight Audit

How It Works

A proven 5-step process

 

1. Discover

You complete our structured discovery questionnaire and a short consultation call. This helps us understand your current recruitment goals, challenges, and success metrics.

2. Map

We benchmark your current activity against live market data — analysing salary ranges, sourcing channels, and talent availability in your sector.

3. Assess

Using our Nine-Pillar Framework, we evaluate your recruitment performance across critical areas including job adverts, candidate experience, employer brand, and sourcing mix.

4. Advise

We translate findings into clear, evidence-based recommendations — backed by over 25 years of specialist recruitment insight — giving you practical actions to improve reach, engagement, and conversion.

5. Deliver

You receive your fully branded Recruitment Insight Audit Report, complete with a visual scorecard, market data, and a follow-up playback call to discuss the results, answer questions, and agree next steps.

What our clients say

Testimonials

Referred by a trusted partner after wasting time elsewhere, Xist4 quickly understood our brief and delivered quality candidates fast, even posting the advert within hours. Professional throughout the interviews and offer stage; we will use them again and strongly recommend them.

Xist4 were responsive, professional and a pleasure to work with, using their IT expertise and rigorous technical screening to present only candidates who met the brief. We secured an outstanding Group ICT Manager quickly and efficiently, and would gladly use and recommend Xist4 again.

Xist4’s transparent screening made it easy to compare strengths, and they delivered a diverse, on-profile slate for our Software Developer role. Gozie was responsive and never pushy, and the top two of our final four came from Xist4; we would happily recommend them.

For over five years, Xist4’s local knowledge and IT pedigree have helped us fill specialist roles in remote locations with thoroughly qualified, on-brief candidates. Gozie is friendly, approachable and prioritises our vacancies, and we are pleased to recommend Xist4 for IT hiring.