Events
Webinars
eBooks
Guides & White Papers
ROI Calculator
REP Tool
SmartRecruiters Webinar Recap: Real Strategies, Real Results from Industry Leaders
As high-volume industries like retail and hospitality brace for peak season, hiring teams face a pivotal challenge: how to scale fast while still hiring right. The stakes are higher than ever—competition is fierce, candidate expectations are rising, and every delay can cost thousands in lost productivity or revenue.
That’s exactly why SmartRecruiters brought together experts from AMS and Frasers Group for a live, no-fluff webinar titled “The Reality of High-Volume Hiring: Data, Speed, and Human Touch.” Featuring insights from Annie Hammer (AMS), Chris from SmartRecruiters, and Adam Reynolds (Frasers Group), the session offered a masterclass in how leading TA teams are breaking through the noise.
Click to watch the full replay:
Key Takeaways: High-Volume Hiring in 2025
1. Find Your Goldilocks Zone of Speed
In high-volume hiring, speed can’t be your only strategy. Adam Reynolds shared that Frasers Group’s sweet spot is 10 days to hire—fast enough to avoid candidate loss, but slow enough to keep ghosting at bay. How? They used automation to strip out manual tasks while keeping human moments where they matter.
“If you move too fast, candidates ghost. Too slow, they’re gone. We found our balance at 10 days.” – Adam Reynolds, Frasers Group
2. Data Is Your Superpower, Not a Burden
Chris from SmartRecruiters pulled real benchmarking data showing that drop-off spikes by 40% per minute after the 4-minute mark in the application flow. Adam’s team used this data to simplify and shorten their application process without sacrificing quality—resulting in higher completion rates and stronger candidate pools.
Benchmark Insight: Top-performing employers reduce their apply time to under 4 minutes to avoid exponential drop-off.
3. Candidate Experience Is Customer Experience
In retail and hospitality, most applicants are also customers. Mistreat one, lose both. Adam emphasized the brand impact of every interaction—even with the 99% who aren’t hired. They redesigned their candidate flow to feel more like an on-brand customer journey than a job board checklist.
“The way you reject candidates matters as much as the way you hire them.” – Adam Reynolds
4. Smarter Hiring = Stronger Business Case
For organizations struggling to secure budget, the speakers shared how to translate hiring outcomes into revenue outcomes. From store performance to NPS to frontline turnover, they connected hiring success with bottom-line impact—unlocking C-level buy-in.
TA Tip: Speak the CFO’s language. Use metrics like revenue per new hire or customer satisfaction improvements linked to faster onboarding.
5. Retention Starts at Day One
High-volume employers often focus heavily on attraction—but forget about retention. Annie Hammer and Adam both emphasized that early attrition kills ROI. Their solution? Design onboarding like marketing: engaging, clear, and tailored to frontline employees.
“The first 30 days are make or break. We optimize not just for offer acceptance—but for staying power.” – Annie Hammer, AMS
Why This Matters Now
According to recent SmartRecruiters Benchmark data, recruiters are handling 4x the applicant volume they did pre-pandemic. Without the right tools, talent teams are stretched thin, candidate experience suffers, and turnover climbs.
SmartRecruiters’ latest platform innovations—SmartOS and Winston, the AI-powered hiring assistant—are built for this exact challenge. With AI-native automation, adaptive workflows, and modular solutions for high-volume use cases, organizations can now scale intelligently, not just rapidly.
Learn more: Meet Winston: The AI-Native Hiring OS.
Watch On Demand: High-Volume Hiring Webinar
Ready to dive deeper? Watch the full conversation for insights, benchmarks, and examples you can bring to your own hiring playbook.