Recruitment Blog

Recruiters are making more placements in a quieter market

Melinda Jennings is JobAdder's Content Marketing Manager. With over 13 years of industry experience, she has a passion for creating compelling and informative content.

If you ask how 2025 felt, most recruiters will tell you the same thing: tight. Job volumes continued to trend down, clients were cautious, and budgets were scrutinised.

Despite all that, data from JobAdder’s 2026 State of Recruitment Report tells an interesting story when it comes to recruiter productivity. Placements made by individual recruiters were up 6% year-on-year in Australia, and up 5% in New Zealand, even as job demand was down 13.6% and 12.6% respectively.

So how are recruiters making more placements when there are fewer jobs to fill? JobAdder’s CEO Martin Herbst helps unpack what’s behind this trend.

The post-COVID market

COVID saw an unprecedented hiring surge across many industries, and the role of the recruiter became largely reactive – receiving large volumes of inbound roles and trying to find candidates to fill them from a scarcer pool.

As Martin explains, since then things have completely changed:

“During COVID, roles were often falling in recruiters’ laps. They didn’t need to necessarily be proactive to generate demand. Now we’re seeing that trend completely flipped on its head, with less job opportunities available but more applicants hunting for a new role.”

That flip from reactive to proactive is precisely where productivity gains are coming from. The recruiters who are making more placements are doing so because, despite a tougher market, they’ve discovered ways to be more productive, efficient, and better.

Conversion is king

In a market with fewer job opportunities available, the important metric is no longer how many roles you have on your desk, but how many you close. Martin describes this shift as moving from a volume game to a conversion game, and the data from JobAdder’s 2026 State of Recruitment Report backs him up.

“Recruiters who are doing well right now aren’t waiting for the phone to ring. They have a niche they specialise in, and they have pre-qualified candidates ready and waiting in the wings, so that when a client has a problem they can solve it that day.

They can even make proactive suggestions for ways clients can fill gaps or be more efficient in their workplace management strategies.”

This closely connects to JobAdder’s data showing that recruiters who fill permanent roles from their own database do so 15.7 days faster in Australia and 16.7 days faster in New Zealand, compared to those using job boards and external sources. This is a massive speed advantage, particularly in a market where clients are time-pressured and expect rapid delivery.

How technology is amplifying the best recruiters

The productivity lift that ANZ recruiters experienced across 2025 and into 2026 didn’t happen in a vacuum. Martin believes that a strong contributor to this uptick is technology. In particular, Adder Intelligence – JobAdder’s AI suite of products launched in 2025 – may be playing a large role in helping recruiters amplify their efforts.

“Since the launch of Adder Intelligence, I’ve had many great conversations with customers about how much time and effort it’s saved them. It’s not replacing their human value by any means; it’s just seamlessly automating and speeding up many of the administrative and operational tasks that can take up time.

It makes sense that smart recruiters tapping into Adder Intelligence are able to make more placements, faster.”

Adder Intelligence is built around a simple philosophy: AI that keeps the recruiter in control. It’s designed to sit frictionlessly within your existing workflows, so recruiters can start seeing results from day one.

Adder Intelligence plays directly into placement efficiency through several features:

Shortlist top candidates in seconds: AI generates summaries and relevancy ratings based on candidate resumes, your notes, and the job description.
Keep your database fresh and primed: AI gives you timely prompts to update candidate records and complete essential tasks for best practice database hygiene.
Turn shortlists into placements quickly and easily: AI creates concise, float-ready candidate summaries generated from resume content and your notes, so you can impress clients with speedy, professional candidate overviews and convert opportunities into placements faster.

What separates high-performers

Although recruiters are showing resilience and continuing to make strong placements, it’s important to remember the bigger picture. The market is still genuinely tough – as already mentioned job demand is down, applications are at an all time high (up 4% year-on-year globally, following jumps of 79% in 2023 and 34.6% in 2024), and fee pressure continues.

Within all that, the high-performing, specialist recruiter is emerging. Recruiters who have a deep knowledge of a sector or function have faster access to the right candidates and can have more credible conversations with clients.

As Martin puts it:

“If you’re competing as a generalist, you’re competing with everyone. That includes in-house hiring teams who can increasingly use AI to serve many of the functions previously only agencies had the manpower and expertise to do.”

These successful recruiters are also investing more in their database management, and treating it as a living, primary asset for success. Starting a conversation with a client armed with a pre-qualified shortlist not only gives you a major speed advantage, but also shows your intrinsic value as a recruiter.

The bigger picture: A filtered market

Perhaps the best lens to look at this data through is that of market filtration. The sustained softness of the job market since 2023 has made for a difficult period, but it’s also been a clarifying one.

Recruiters who have made it through the fire are more disciplined, more specialised, and more productive than the broader cohort was at that COVID hiring peak.

Martin says:

“If 2025 was fruitful for you, it’s because of the work you’ve put into yourself. I’m talking about how you work, how you deliver, and who your clients are. If that’s something you’ve invested in already, you’re probably already seeing the difference it’s made.

And if you haven’t yet, it’s a fantastic opportunity for where to focus in 2026.”

When there are less job opportunities, there are less places to hide. Every open role matters more, as does every client relationship. What recruiters are able to do with those fewer placements makes all the difference.

Read the full Report and watch the webinar on-demand

JobAdder’s 2026 State of Recruitment Report dives into job demand, placement trends, candidate supply, fee data, and expert insights from across Australia, New Zealand and the UK. To learn more about these trends and what they mean for you, download the full Report and access the on-demand webinar.

If you’re interested in how JobAdder can improve your placement productivity, check out Adder Intelligence, or request a custom demo of our platform in action.