Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

I talk to a lot of people in IT recruitment. And when I ask them what the most frustrating part of their job is, almost everyone says the same thing.

It’s not the interviews. It’s not the client calls. It’s not even the rejections. It’s the hours that disappear before any of that even starts. Searching. Filtering. Opening profiles. Building a list. Realizing it’s not right. Starting over. For every single role.

Nobody talks about this part. It doesn’t show up in any metric. It doesn’t impress clients. It just eats time.

There’s been a lot of noise about AI fixing recruiting. And honestly some of it is warranted. The part where AI actually seems to help is exactly here, not in the interviews, not in the decisions, but in collapsing the time between receiving a role and having a shortlist worth looking at.

I’m curious how other recruiters are experiencing this in 2026. Has AI actually moved the needle for your sourcing workflow? Or does it mostly add steps rather than remove them?Genuinely want to understand what’s working and what isn’t.