Finding applicants is not always the same as finding the right applicants. An organization can receive dozens or even hundreds of resumes and still struggle to identify people with the experience, skills, interest and potential needed for the role.

For employers, the challenge is no longer simply how to generate more applications. It is how to attract qualified candidates, communicate opportunities effectively, identify relevant skills and build a recruitment process that reaches the right people before hiring becomes urgent.

That challenge remains significant in Canada. Statistics Canada reported that 25.2% of Canadian businesses expected recruiting skilled employees to be an obstacle in the third quarter of 2026. Earlier in the year, 35.1% of businesses reported experiencing difficulty finding candidates who possessed the skills needed for their roles.

There is no single recruitment channel that solves every hiring problem. But employers can improve their chances by becoming clearer about what they need, making opportunities easier to understand, widening how they identify relevant talent and creating more opportunities for meaningful interaction with potential candidates.

Recruiting Skilled Employees Remains a Real Business Challenge

Hiring difficulty can exist even when unemployment is elevated or application volumes are high. The availability of people looking for work does not necessarily mean an employer will immediately find candidates with the right combination of skills, experience, credentials, availability and interest.

Statistics Canada found that more than one-third of businesses experienced difficulty finding candidates with the skills they required during the previous 12 months. Among businesses reporting this problem, a low number of applicants or insufficient interest in the type of work offered was the most frequently identified difficulty.

That distinction matters. Employers do not simply need more names in an applicant tracking system. They need people who understand the opportunity, have relevant capabilities and can realistically see themselves succeeding in the organization.

Improving recruitment therefore begins before the first resume arrives.

Start by Defining What “Qualified” Actually Means

One of the most important hiring decisions happens before a position is advertised: deciding which requirements are genuinely essential.

Job descriptions can gradually accumulate long lists of preferred credentials, years of experience, software knowledge and industry background. Some requirements may be necessary. Others may simply describe the person who held the job previously rather than the person who could perform it successfully next.

Before recruiting, separate requirements into three groups:

• Essential: qualifications or abilities a person genuinely needs to perform the role safely and effectively.
• Preferred: experience that would be useful but could potentially be developed after hiring.
• Trainable: knowledge, systems or processes that a capable candidate can reasonably learn.

This does not mean lowering standards. It means making those standards more precise.

An employer looking only for an identical job title or an identical career history may overlook someone whose transferable experience demonstrates the same underlying capability. Skills-based evaluation can help organizations recognize relevant talent that may not fit one predetermined profile.

Make the Opportunity Worth Noticing

Candidate attraction is partly a communication problem. A job posting may describe what the organization expects from an employee while saying very little about why a strong candidate should consider the opportunity.

Qualified candidates want to understand the work. What will they be responsible for? What problems will they help solve? Who will they work with? What skills can they develop? What does success look like? Why does the role exist?

Compensation and benefits matter, but they are not the only information candidates use to judge an opportunity. Clarity around responsibilities, advancement, workplace expectations, scheduling, leadership, organizational purpose and professional development can help potential applicants make better decisions.

This is especially important for smaller or lesser-known organizations competing against employers with greater brand recognition. A strong organization can still be invisible to potential candidates if people do not understand who it is, what it offers or why the opportunity deserves attention.

Job Titles Alone Do Not Tell You What a Candidate Can Do

Two candidates with different job titles may have performed remarkably similar work. Two people with the same title may have had completely different levels of responsibility.

That is why employers increasingly benefit from looking beyond titles and asking what a candidate has actually done.

Relevant questions include:

• What problems has this person solved?
• What responsibilities have they handled?
• What tools, systems or processes have they used?
• What results have they produced?
• What transferable skills could apply to this role?
• What could reasonably be learned after hiring?

This approach can be particularly valuable when evaluating career changers, experienced professionals moving between industries, people returning to the workforce and candidates whose previous titles do not neatly match the terminology used by the hiring organization.

The goal is not to ignore credentials or relevant experience. It is to make sure employers are evaluating the capabilities that actually matter to performance.

Do Not Rely Entirely on Applications Coming to You

Online applications are an important part of modern recruitment, but they should not necessarily be the only way an organization encounters potential talent.

Some suitable candidates may not recognize the employer's name. Others may misunderstand the role from a short posting, assume they do not qualify, or simply never see the opportunity. An organization that relies entirely on people independently discovering and applying for a position can therefore limit the number of potential candidates it encounters.

Employers can broaden recruitment by creating opportunities to introduce the organization directly, explain career paths, answer questions and begin conversations with people who may not otherwise have entered the application process.

This can happen through professional networks, community outreach, industry relationships, educational partnerships and in-person hiring events.

The objective is not to replace digital recruitment. It is to create additional points of contact with potential candidates and reduce complete dependence on a single recruitment channel.

Direct Candidate Conversations Can Reveal What a Resume Cannot

A resume is useful, but it is still a summary. It cannot fully show how clearly someone explains a complex project, how they describe a problem they solved, what motivates their career decisions or how well they understand the opportunity in front of them.

Direct conversations can give employers additional job-relevant information that is difficult to obtain from documents alone.

An initial conversation can help an employer explore a candidate's experience, clarify transferable skills, explain the role and determine whether there is enough alignment to continue the recruitment process.

That should not become an unstructured “gut feeling” exercise. Hiring decisions should remain based on relevant qualifications, consistent criteria and fair evaluation. The value of direct interaction is that it gives both sides more information.

It also allows candidates to ask questions. That matters because recruitment is a two-way process: employers are evaluating candidates, but qualified candidates are also deciding which organizations deserve their time and interest.

Build a Talent Pipeline Before Hiring Becomes Urgent

Recruitment becomes more difficult when every search begins from zero.

Organizations with recurring, seasonal, specialized or growth-related hiring needs can benefit from maintaining relationships with potential candidates before every vacancy becomes urgent.

A talent pipeline may include people who are ready to move now, candidates who could become suitable after gaining additional experience, previous applicants worth reconsidering, students or graduates entering the profession, and experienced individuals who are not actively applying today but may consider the right opportunity later.

Pipeline building changes the recruitment question from “Who can we find this week?” to “Who are we already connected with who may be relevant when the need arises?”

That can give employers more continuity and create a wider base of potential candidates for future recruitment.

Employer Visibility Is Part of Recruitment

Recruitment does not begin when someone clicks Apply. It often begins when a potential candidate first becomes aware of an organization.

Large employers can benefit from familiarity built over many years. Smaller businesses, growing companies, startups, public-facing organizations and employers entering new markets may need to create that awareness more deliberately.

Employer visibility is not simply advertising a logo. It means helping potential candidates understand what the organization does, what opportunities exist, what types of people succeed there and why someone should consider building part of their career with the organization.

Repeated visibility can also support future hiring. Someone who is not looking for a new role today may remember an organization months later when their circumstances change.

That is one reason recruitment activity should not always be measured only by immediate hires. Conversations, awareness and talent-pipeline development can create value beyond a single vacancy.

Bring Recruitment Channels Together

The strongest recruitment strategy is rarely built around one channel.

A clear job description may generate stronger applications. Skills-based evaluation may reveal candidates who would otherwise be overlooked. Employer visibility can introduce the organization to people who did not previously know it. Direct conversations can provide context that a resume cannot. Talent-pipeline development can support future hiring before the next vacancy becomes urgent.

Together, these approaches improve the likelihood that employers are not simply collecting applications but creating meaningful access to relevant talent.

That is ultimately the objective: not the largest possible applicant count, but a stronger connection between the organization, the opportunity and people capable of contributing.

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