Sample audit report · Recruitment agency
Permanent placements in finance, IT and office support, 7 people
This is what a company gets after the audit. The company is invented; the report was written by the AI agent. The text has not been edited.
Amounts in the text are the invented company's own figures and prices, not ours. All samples and how to request an audit
Farthingale Staffing Partners: where placements are lost
Review as of 13 July 2026, covering job orders opened from 13 April to 12 July 2026.
1. In short
- Is slow screening what costs you placements? No. Every incoming application is read the same working day. On the morning of the review 74 were unread, and every one had arrived after the last round on Friday afternoon.
- Does the AI screening agent pay for itself? No. It costs 650 EUR a month and 2 400 EUR to set up, and it stops no payment you make today.
- Do you still need a full-time resourcer with it? Yes. Reading applications is about a third of her paid time, and the agent would hand part of it back as checking.
- Why does Rhys send the most CVs and place the fewest? Because of the accounts on his desk: 42 of its 59 job orders are framework roles, and no framework role that ended in the period was filled by the firm, by anyone.
- Where placements are lost: after the CV has gone to the client. Of 881 CVs sent, 280 ended with the candidate withdrawing and 23 with a placement.
2. How the work runs today
In three months the firm opened 150 job orders and received 5 041 applications from job boards and the website, about 1 680 a month. The resourcer reads all of them, for all four consultants, in three rounds a day: nine, noon and four. She puts it at about 2 minutes a CV; with 1 662 actually read a month that is 55.4 hours a month. Rejected candidates get an email from the system the same evening. The consultants do not read raw applications; they get the people she passes on, about one in eight, and ring them.
You told us consultants read CVs three hours each a day. The resourcer and the consultant we spoke to both describe it differently, and you said yourself that the figure is an impression. The three hours a day are real, but they are the resourcer's.
From there the consultant sends the CV to the client and waits. This is where work sits. Nobody agrees an answer date with any client.
3. Where the firm loses, and why
After the CV is sent. 31.8% of CVs sent to clients ended with the candidate withdrawing. The share is about the same on exclusive, standard and framework work, and for every consultant. Another 111 CVs never received any answer before the job ended; 85 of those were on framework roles.
How long clients take is not known. Your consultant says a week or more, and over two weeks on framework portals. Your own impression is a day or two. Your recruitment software records the date of every step but your licence does not export it, so neither view can be checked today. That the wait is what makes candidates withdraw is likely, and your consultant believes it, but it is not proven.
Framework accounts. 49 of 150 job orders came from the four framework clients. 26 of them ended, none with your candidate. Of the 41 other job orders that ended, 23 were filled: 56.1%. Framework roles drew 1 711 applications and 253 CVs sent, all read, rung and submitted like any other, for the lowest fee. They are released to five or six agencies at once through the client's portal.
What was not confirmed. Slow screening: not found. A weaker consultant on the framework desk: not found either. On standard terms that desk filled 4 of 9 ended job orders, 44.4%, against 38.5% for the other three consultants on the same terms. The gap is the framework accounts, not the person. Unpaid invoices: 61 430 EUR is open and none of it is overdue. Overtime: none is paid. Job boards (1 450 EUR a month) and the recruitment software (390 EUR a month) are both in use.
Two smaller weak points. Nobody covers the resourcer when she is away. And the meaning of the stages in your software is written down nowhere: the people we asked could not define several of them.
4. What to change, and in what order
- Do not buy the screening agent. It speeds up a step that holds nothing back.
- Agree an answer date with the client when you take a vacancy on. An answer on each CV within two working days, interview slots held in advance. It is free. Start with exclusive and standard clients.
- Switch on the export of step dates in your recruitment software. The supplier says about a week; ask for the price. Without it you cannot see whether point 2 works.
- Decide what to do with framework roles. Get out the agreements and past results first: nobody could tell us whether you must work every role, or when one last ended in a fee.
- Write down what each stage means, and name cover for the resourcer. Free.
- Later, as a trial: automatic reminders to client contacts, 300 EUR to set up and 90 EUR a month. They do not reach clients who take CVs only through their portal, so not the framework accounts.
Not worth doing now: reducing the resourcer post, and self-service interview booking, since few candidates get as far as an interview.
5. What we can do for you
Unanswered CVs. We add an "answer due" date to the job order and a daily list of overdue CVs for each consultant, and we get the step dates switched on and build your before-and-after figures. That is our "Groundwork" package; the price is named after this review, before work begins. After that our request follow-up agent can remind client contacts and list unanswered CVs. Its price is also named after the review, before work begins; the cost of the language model is paid separately, by actual use. From you we need: the rule that answer dates are agreed, access to the software, a decision on whether candidate data may go to an outside AI model, a named person to look after the agent, and approved wording. The trial runs two weeks and compares the share of sent CVs left unanswered.
Stage meanings. We collect them from your people and write them into your guide, as part of the same package.
Nothing to sell: the framework decision, cover for the resourcer, and screening itself. These are your decisions.
Not for an agent: rejecting candidates, calls with candidates and hiring managers, fees, guarantee credits, anything disputed.
6. What this gives, and what we do not promise
Money: nothing here stops a payment, and we promise no saving and no extra fees. The screening agent would, on the supplier's own unmeasured 80%, free 20.3 hours a month of salaried time while adding 24 hours a month of checking; that is time, not money. Chasing clients takes the consultants about 10 hours a week by one consultant's account; that is the most a follow-up tool could touch, not a promise. People: no post can be reduced on these figures.
7. What is missing, and how to check
- Days from CV sent to client answer, and when candidates withdraw: needs the step dates.
- Framework agreements and earlier framework results.
- Whether three candidates placed in late May and early June have started: they are not invoiced yet.
- How the supplier's agent performs on your roles: never tested.
The number to watch is the share of sent CVs that end in withdrawal: 31.8% today. Compare it two months after answer dates are agreed, then decide on the reminders and the follow-up agent.