Managing your Volume Recruitment Campaigns
Volume hiring isn’t just about filling roles quickly — it’s about doing it consistently, without burning out your team or your talent pool. And when you’re a small HR team or solo coordinator managing 20, 50, or even 100 hires over a short period, that’s no small feat.
Over the years, I’ve supported clients through exactly this challenge — from helping a contact centre scale their telesales team from 8 to 40 staff within 6 weeks, to managing a rolling campaign for installation engineers across the North West for a rapidly expanding access controls engineering firm.
Here are a few hard-earned lessons I’ve learnt that might just save you time, stress, and budget – particularly if you’re stretched for time or short on internal resource.
1. Map It Out Before You Start Scaling
When pressure is on, it’s tempting to jump straight into advertising — but skipping the planning phase is where most volume campaigns unravel. Start by mapping your process from first advert to final offer. Look for steps that can be:
- Automated (screening questions, scheduling tools, autoresponders)
- Streamlined (shortlisting criteria, interview formats, decision points)
- Delegated (can hiring managers own certain stages confidently?)
Volume campaigns thrive on structure. Without it, delays and inconsistent decisions creep in — and you’ll find your applicants have already been snapped up elsewhere.
2. Standardise the Candidate Journey
Templates might not be glamorous, but they’re game-changers in volume hiring:
- Consistent job ads to ensure the right expectations
- Reusable email templates for rejections, interview invites, and follow-ups
- Standardised scorecards to reduce bias and speed up debriefs
Not only does this save time, it enhances the candidate experience. And in a market where 72% of applicants say a poor experience would make them less likely to recommend or reapply, that matters more than ever.
3. Monitor Application Trends – And Mix Up Your Channels
One common challenge I see is drop-off in application volume after the initial campaign launch. Usually, you get a surge in week one — then things slow. Fast.
That’s why it’s crucial to plan a multi-channel strategy, with staggered promotion across:
- Major job boards (for visibility and volume)
- Niche or sector-specific sites (for targeted reach)
- Social media (especially LinkedIn or Facebook for local roles)
- Offline methods — job fairs, referral schemes, even posters in the right locations
Each channel performs differently depending on the role. Track your data weekly to spot which are delivering quality, not just quantity.
4. Track Candidates Properly – and Keep Communication Positive
Volume hiring without a good tracking system is like herding cats in the dark. Whether it’s a basic spreadsheet or a full-blown ATS, you need oversight.
More importantly, you need consistent candidate communication. Ghosting applicants, failing to follow up, or going quiet for weeks not only harms your brand — it shrinks your local talent pool.
Candidates talk. And in regional or industry-specific markets, a poor experience now can mean fewer applications later. Even a quick “Thanks but not this time” message is better than silence. Build goodwill — even with rejections.
5. Know When (and What) to Outsource
In the contact centre campaign I mentioned earlier, the HR team had great onboarding processes but simply couldn’t screen 200+ applicants in under a week. We stepped in to filter candidates and run initial interviews — meaning they only met the top 10%.
You don’t have to hand everything over. Sometimes, targeted support at pressure points (like sourcing, screening, or running assessment centres) can protect your internal resource and keep things moving.
Final Thoughts
Volume recruitment doesn’t have to mean overwhelmed teams and frazzled candidates. With a solid process, a flexible approach, and the right support in the right places, you can scale without slipping.
And if you’re about to launch a high-volume campaign and want to sanity-check your plan or sense-check your strategy, feel free to get in touch — sometimes a quick chat upfront saves weeks of firefighting later.
