How We Hire Fast Without Breaking Delivery, Cash, or Culture

Scaling Without Losing Quality

We’ve added 14 people in the last two quarters: operations, business development, quality & compliance, finance, admin. That’s a big lift. It takes time, attention, and energy from the whole leadership team. A strong working relationship with our Head of HR Lizzie makes a huge difference, but finding the right talent is still hard.

I want to grow Test Labs responsibly, protect delivery, cash, quality, and culture, while increasing our capacity to serve our industry. That means treating hiring like an operating system, not an occasional event.

Current Market Reality

Hiring hasn’t “snapped back to easy.” In the UK, the median time-to-hire sits around 40 days, slightly above the global average, while vacancies, though easing, remain historically elevated ~718–727k this summer. Skills shortages still hit a majority of employers (62%), and the average cost per hire is about £6,125, rising to ~£19,000 for manager roles. Get it wrong and a single mid-manager mis-hire can cost you ~£132,000, over three times salary, once you factor re-recruitment, onboarding waste, team morale damage, and missed targets.

In the US, demand is cooling but still large-scale: ~7.2 million job openings in July. Average cost per hire for typical roles sits near $4,700 and much higher for executive/hard-to-fill roles, and time-to-fill is generally faster than Europe at ~35–36 days vs. UK ~40. Globally, 74% of employers report difficulty finding skilled talent.

What this data is saying is that the cycle may soften, but skills are still the bottleneck, and wasteful hiring burns cash, time, and momentum.

How We Run the System at Test Labs

1. Culture first. We hire for values and pace over “perfect CVs.” Test Labs isn’t for everyone and that’s the point.
2. A real funnel. Candidates exit early by design. We audition the role, not the résumé.
3. Plan for the dip. New people slow you down before they speed you up. We budget leadership time and onboarding capacity so growth doesn’t stall.
4. Clear induction plan. Your first four weeks are mapped: what you’ll do and how success is measured.
5. Remove friction weekly. Regular 1:1s, clear objectives and KPIs, clarity, support, feedback. Strong relationships, faster ramp.

We also wanted to try something new, something I’d never experienced, so we turned to Pareto.

Inside the Pareto Assessment Day

We briefed Pareto on the roles, Business Development Executives. They put forward 25+ candidates and ran a full assessment day. Think Apprentice-style energy, but constructive. Candidates compete in front of each other and a panel. The day was split into 3 parts.

Part 1: Introductions that actually tell you something

Each candidate introduced themselves, answered a few host questions, shared their biggest non-academic achievement, and a favourite public figure and why.

This is where you see who can hold a room. Some prepared; others improvised well. You learn who stands out, who can land a message, and who you’d trust to introduce your brand to someone who’s never heard of it.

Part 2: Cold-call exercise under pressure

Candidates split into teams. Each team got a fictional company with three stakeholders and a potential opportunity. They chose who to call, built a script, planned objections, and went for an appointment.

We watched the prep: who takes initiative, how they prioritise, how they think. Then the call, live to the host Aimee, who pushed hard with realistic objections. Not everyone could make the call; that alone surfaced who steps forward when it counts.

Part 3: 1:1 pitch to the panel

Three minutes per candidate to show they understand the role, want the role, and can do the role. Notes were fine, but the few who spoke cleanly without them stood out, clear thinking, natural delivery.

Then decisions. We selected the people to progress and made the calls in minutes. Fast, fair, decisive, minus the TV drama.

That’s how Furhad and Zara joined the team. The process was intense, but it saved us time and gave us talent who had to perform and win before they got the job.

Why This Worked

• Signal over noise. Real tasks under time pressure reveal more than five interviews ever will.
• Speed. 25+ candidates assessed in a day without losing quality.
• Role-fit. You hire people who can actually do the job, not just talk about it.
• Ownership. The best candidates volunteer for the hard bits. That matters in sales.

The Other Side of Growth

Rapid hiring brings growing pains. Management load goes up. Team dynamics shift. Onboarding becomes a core capability, not an afterthought. We’re honest about that and we plan for it:

• Protect service quality while people ramp.
• Over-communicate goals, standards, and how we work.
• Coach early. Don’t let small problems calcify.

People drive growth. The right people, even more so.

The Discipline Behind Sustainable Growth

Responsible growth is a system. We hire for trajectory, audition the work, plan the ramp, and instrument the first 90 days. That’s how we added headcount without breaking delivery, cash, or quality. The market will swing; process doesn’t. If you’re scaling a company, start by rebuilding the hiring funnel around real work and remove one friction every week until it runs clean.