Why most shortlists arrive too late and tell you too little
The average UK time to fill a sales vacancy is 42 days. The best sales candidates are typically off the market within 10 days of entering a hiring process. That gap is where most businesses lose the people they actually wanted.
By the time the average agency has posted a job advert, waited for applications, done a phone screen and assembled a shortlist, your strongest candidates have already been interviewed elsewhere and accepted an offer. The process was not designed for the pace of the commercial talent market.
The second problem is quality. Most agencies define a shortlist as any candidate who broadly matches the job description and is available. That is not a shortlist. That is a filtered database query. A genuine shortlist requires a recruiter who has spoken to the candidate in depth, verified their track record and made a considered judgement about whether they are right for this specific role.
The ten-day rule: If your hiring process takes longer than ten days from shortlist to offer, you are losing your best candidates to faster-moving competitors. The businesses consistently winning the best commercial talent have interview slots blocked before the shortlist arrives.
What we do differently
Psixty UK delivers a fully vetted shortlist of three to five candidates within 48 hours of taking a brief. Not a pile of CVs. A shortlist with a rationale for each candidate, quota attainment data with context, and an honest assessment of fit.
This is possible because we do not rely on job adverts. We headhunt directly from our active network of sales, marketing and operations professionals built over a combined 35 years of specialist recruitment. When you brief us, we are contacting specific people we already know and trust, not waiting for the right person to apply.