Let’s be honest: there are a lot of recruiters out there who can talk tech - but can’t actually recruit in it.

They’ll use the right words, nod at the right acronyms, and still somehow send you a “DevOps engineer” who’s never touched Terraform. Or a “data scientist” who’s never worked outside Excel. Or a “senior developer” who’s never owned a release.



This is more than just an annoyance - it’s a liability. Because in high-performance tech environments, a weak hire doesn’t just cost you money - they cost you momentum.

If you’re building or scaling in custom development, cloud, or data, you need a recruitment partner who understands what a good hire actually looks like - not just on paper, but in code, in architecture, in delivery, and in the way they show up for your team.

Here are 7 questions that will help you figure out if your recruiter is one of the few who gets it - or just another CV dispatcher with a LinkedIn license.

1. How does this role fit into the rest of the stack?

If your recruiter can’t explain how this person supports or unblocks the team around them, they’re not close enough to the work.

A data engineer working upstream of analytics needs to structure pipelines a certain way. A cloud engineer managing infrastructure-as-code needs to account for how developers deploy into that environment. A backend dev who’s touching APIs needs to understand version control, dependencies, and testing culture.

If your recruiter doesn’t ask those questions up front, they’re playing buzzword bingo - not building capability.

2. Where do we lose candidates in this market - and why?

Senior devs, data engineers, cloud architects - they don’t apply. They don’t wait around. And they definitely don’t have time for five-stage interview processes run by HR.

If your recruiter can’t tell you where candidates are dropping off - or how to fix it - they’re not managing your process. They’re just observing it.

Good recruiters know how to sequence interviews, keep top candidates warm, and position your opportunity with urgency, clarity, and credibility. That’s the difference between a hire and a near-miss.

3. Which skills are non-negotiable - and how do you qualify that?

You don’t just need someone who’s “touched” AWS. You need someone who understands IaC, can write clean, modular Terraform, and knows when to flag risks before they hit production.

You don’t need a data analyst who lists Python - you need one who can write reusable scripts, build pipelines that don’t collapse under load, and explain outputs to a product owner without slipping into jargon.

A good recruiter probes. A great one pushes back. They’ll ask you: is that skill truly critical - or can we coach for it? And how are we testing for it?

4. What salary flashpoints are shifting right now?

Markets move. Fast.

If your recruiter isn’t warning you that senior cloud engineers are being poached on six-figure contracts - or that analytics talent is being pulled into product-led orgs with better tooling and tighter feedback loops - you’ll lose good people without ever knowing why.

Good recruiters help you anticipate movement before it hits. They don’t just take your budget - they help you protect it.

5. What roles do candidates confuse this with - and how do you navigate that?

This is a huge signal of whether your recruiter is a partner or a passenger.

Ask them: how often do you see candidates apply for this kind of role without understanding it? How do you redirect those people without damaging brand perception? What’s your strategy for educating the market on who we actually need?

If they can’t answer that, they’re not protecting your process - or your time.

6. What red flags do you screen out before we waste time?

If your recruiter can’t name three instant deal-breakers, they’re not qualifying properly.

They should be filtering out:

• Backend devs who say “full-stack” but haven’t touched a frontend framework since 2020
• Cloud engineers who’ve never managed infrastructure directly
• “Data people” who can’t explain how their work changed a business outcome
• Project managers who can’t articulate stakeholder pressure, critical path, or tech debt trade-offs

You’re not paying for volume - you’re paying for filtration.

7. How do you spot the 1%ers - not just the qualified?

Here’s where capability comes in.

Anyone can spot someone who ticks boxes. But only an experienced recruiter will notice the subtle, behavioural signals that scream impact player.

You know the type:

• They don’t just complete tickets - they rewrite poor requirements
• They don’t escalate late - they escalate early, with context
• They manage up, mentor sideways, and make others better by being on the team
• They know when to compromise - and when to hold the line

These people rarely shout. They rarely sell themselves well.

They show up through patterns. And if your recruiter can’t see those patterns, they’ll miss them.

Final Word: Tech Hiring Is Capability Hiring

If your recruiter can’t talk fluently about architecture, delivery pressure, platform fragility, cloud cost blowout, or stakeholder alignment - they can’t help you build a great team.

Anyone can send you a résumé. Not everyone can protect your delivery pipeline.

So next time you brief a role in cloud, dev, or data, don’t just hand it over and hope.

Ask better questions. Expect sharper answers. Work with people who get it.

Want a recruiter who can see what a candidate’s really made of - before you waste your team’s time?

Let’s talk.

Book a 15-minute no-fluff hiring review – reach out to myself, James, Rupert or Craig