A fair comparison
Vacancies filled, or patterns understood.
Two ways of thinking about talent lead to two different sets of decisions. Here is a plain account of both, so you can weigh them for yourself.
Back to homeWhy the comparison matters
Most recruitment work is organised around the open position: write the listing, screen the people who reply, fill the seat. That solves the immediate problem and rarely explains why the seat opened, or why it might open again. Reading the movement of people takes a longer view, and the two are worth setting next to each other.
Two approaches, side by side
Vacancy-led recruitment
- Starts from an open role and works backward to a candidate.
- Job descriptions pick up requirements over the years without being reviewed.
- A departure is treated as a single event to be replaced.
- Onboarding is left to whoever has time that week.
Movement reading (what we do)
- Starts from how people move through the organisation, then asks what a role should be.
- Role descriptions are tested against what the work actually requires.
- A departure is read alongside arrival and stay, as one continuous pattern.
- Onboarding is laid out as a deliberate ninety-day sequence.
What sets this reading apart
The method draws on service records and confidential conversation together. An exit interview on its own tends to capture the reason given on the way out and misses the one that surfaces later.
Two points in time
Where the records allow, the reason given at departure is set beside the account people give once some months have passed.
Patterns, not cases
Reports describe organisational patterns and do not name individuals, which keeps the material usable for management decisions.
On speed and effect
A vacancy-led approach can fill a seat quickly, which matters when the need is urgent, and we are not the right door for that: we do not place candidates. What the approach seldom answers is why the seat opened. A retention pattern review is built to ask that question, and to leave a written account of what the records show. It cannot promise that turnover will fall.
On cost and value
Repeated recruitment for the same role costs advertising, screening time and lost output, spread across budgets so that it rarely shows up as one line. Each of our services has a guide price stated up front and confirmed in writing, so at least our own part of the picture is visible. Whether a review is worth it for you depends on how often the same seat opens, and we would rather you judged that yourself.
What an engagement looks like
Where a recruitment agency appears when a role is open, our engagements have a defined shape: about three weeks for a review, a single session for a workshop and four weeks for onboarding design, each ending in a written document your team can use without us. The dates and scope are fixed in the written quote, not on this page.
A few common objections
"Recruitment agencies already look at retention."
Some do. A firm that is paid per placement is naturally pointed at the current opening, which is a different question from the one we ask. We are not an agency and do not take placement fees.
"Exit interviews already capture this."
They capture what someone says at the moment of leaving. A year later the same person may name a different reason, and both are worth having.
"This only suits large companies."
The retention review is scoped for roughly thirty people or more because a pattern needs enough departures to show. The workshop and the onboarding work make sense at a smaller size.
Where this is not the right tool
If you need a person found by next month, this is the wrong service, and so is any approach that begins with analysis. Likewise, if turnover is low and the roles are well understood, a review would mostly confirm what you already know.
If this framing is useful to you
Describe your situation and we will say whether a pattern-based review would add anything. A first message commits you to nothing.
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