Tech recruitment speed is still what separates a closed search from a lost one, and the Canva job cuts reported by SMH Technology have not changed that. More than 1000 roles going at one of Australia’s best-known tech companies makes the market look loose, and it is easy to assume strong candidates are now queuing at your door. They are not. The people you actually want are mostly still employed, and when they do move, they move fast. If your process takes six weeks, a faster offer from someone else will usually land before your final interview is booked.
Canva’s Cuts Made More Candidates Visible. Did They Make Hiring Easier?
Visible, yes. Easier, not much. Headlines about layoffs put a lot of CVs into circulation, and some of those people are excellent. But the senior engineers, product leaders and data people most companies are chasing are rarely the ones in the cuts, and when they are, they tend to be picked up within days by people who know them. The wider pool grows. The pool of strong, available, well-matched people for your specific role grows far less.
This is the illusion of abundance. A hiring manager sees a hundred applicants and relaxes, then discovers that ten are relevant, three are strong, and two have already accepted something. The tech talent shortage in Australia has not gone away because one company restructured. It has shifted shape. Demand is more selective, and companies are hiring for narrower, more specific skills than they were a couple of years ago. You can see the broader hiring pace in the SEEK Employment Trends data, which tracks job ads and applications per ad across sectors.
The practical effect for a founder or CTO is that a looser headline market tempts you to slow down. You add another interview round, wait for a bigger shortlist, or park the search while a budget conversation finishes. Each of those feels sensible alone. Together they are how a search quietly turns into a lost one.
Why Does Tech Recruitment Speed Decide Who Wins the Hire?
Because candidates read your pace as a signal. A senior engineer running two or three processes at once has no direct view of how well you run your company. What they have is your behaviour: how quickly you replied, whether the interviewers turned up prepared, whether anyone could tell them what happens next. If you take nine days to reply after a first interview, they do not assume you are careful. They assume you are disorganised, or that they are not a priority.
That is what candidate expectations in tech hiring look like now. People expect clear communication, a defined timeline and a decision without a month of silence. They do not expect to be rushed, and good candidates are often suspicious of a process that moves too fast to be thoughtful. What they respond to is momentum with clarity.
This is where I want to separate speed from haste. Speed is not about cutting the interview short or lowering the bar. It is about removing dead time, the days when a candidate sits in your pipeline and nothing happens. A search with a clear five-stage process over two weeks is faster and more rigorous than one with three stages spread across six, because the first keeps the candidate engaged and the second lets their attention drift to a competitor. Time to hire is a measure of your calendar, not your standards.
Where Does the Time Actually Go in a Slow Tech Search?
Rarely in sourcing. When we look at searches that stall across Sydney tech teams, which is the vantage point we have at Big Wave Digital, the first shortlist usually appears within a week or two. The delay starts after that. It sits in four places, and almost none of them involve finding people.
An unclear role definition. The hiring manager, the CEO and the team lead each hold a slightly different picture of who they want. Candidates get shortlisted, then rejected for reasons nobody had said out loud, and the search restarts with new criteria.
Slow feedback. A candidate interviews on Tuesday and the feedback arrives the following Wednesday because one interviewer was travelling. That is eight days of dead time, and it happens at the exact moment the candidate is most likely to be speaking to someone else.
Scheduling gaps. Finding a slot when three senior people are all free often takes longer than the interview itself. Companies that block interview windows in advance close searches noticeably faster than those who negotiate calendars one candidate at a time.
Late decisions. A clear preferred candidate sits for a week while someone seeks a final sign-off, a budget check or one more opinion. By the time the offer goes out, the candidate has often accepted another one.
Fix those four and time to hire for tech roles in Sydney drops without anyone lowering the bar. That is the part that surprises people. They expect speed to cost quality, and in practice the faster processes tend to be the better-run ones.
This is also where the question of outside help becomes honest rather than reflexive. A specialist tech recruiter helps most when the gap is access: when they hold a warm network of people who would not see your advert, and when they keep the process moving between your interviewers and the candidate. They help less when the problem sits inside your own calendar. If you have a clear brief, decision makers who respond within a day, and an employer brand that already attracts good people, hiring direct can work well and cost less. An agency will not fix a slow internal process, and a good one will tell you so.
5 Questions to Ask Before You Let a Search Drift
Before you extend a search another fortnight, or decide to bring in outside support, run through these with whoever is involved in the hire.
- Can everyone on the panel describe the same person? Ask each interviewer to write down the three things that would make them say yes. If the answers differ, fix that first.
- How many days sit between each stage? Count from your last search. If the gaps between interviews average more than three or four working days, that is where candidates are leaving.
- Who can say yes, and how quickly? If an offer needs sign-off from someone who is hard to reach, agree a decision window before the search starts.
- Is the problem finding people or moving them through? If you are seeing a steady flow of relevant candidates who then fall away, the issue is process. If you are seeing very few, it is access.
- What would a strong candidate hear about us in the first week? Clear communication, a defined timeline and prompt feedback are all things you control without spending anything.
If questions one to three and five expose problems, you have an internal speed issue, and a recruiter will only mask it. If your answers are solid and question four points to access, that is when specialist support earns its fee.
Frequently Asked Questions
How fast should a tech hiring process move in Sydney?
For most mid-level and senior roles, two to three weeks from first interview to offer is a sensible target. Tech recruitment speed matters most between stages, so aim for feedback within 24 to 48 hours and a decision within a few days of the final interview. A longer process is fine if the candidate always knows what is happening next.
Is a specialist recruiter worth it for one urgent role?
Sometimes. If the role needs a skill set that is scarce and your own network and advert have not produced a shortlist, a specialist recruiter can save weeks because they already know who is open to a conversation. If you have a clear brief and applicants are coming in, you probably do not need one.
Does a loosening market mean I can take longer to hire?
No. Layoff headlines widen the pool of applicants, but strong candidates still receive multiple offers. Taking longer usually means losing your preferred person to a quicker employer.
What causes the biggest delays in time to hire?
Unclear role definitions, slow interview feedback, scheduling gaps and late decisions. Sourcing is rarely the main cause. Mapping the days between each stage of your last search will show you where yours went.
The Bottom Line
Decide your hiring pace before you open the search. Audit your own process for dead days, agree a decision timeline with your interviewers, and block the interview windows in advance. Most companies find that this alone pulls a week or more out of their time to hire, and it costs nothing.
Bring in outside help only if the gap is access to talent rather than internal speed. Be honest about which problem you have. If your process is the bottleneck, fix it. If your process is sound but the right people are not responding, that is when a specialist partner is worth paying for.
The future is bright, let’s go there together!
Thanks for reading,
Cheers Keiran
Big Wave Digital.
Born in Sydney. Built for digital.
Obsessed with tech.
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— Plato
Fear slow hires.
Fear bad hires.
Fear wasting time.
But don’t fear reaching out.
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Big Wave Digital are experts in Digital Recruitment Sydney
At Big Wave Digital, Sydney’s leading digital, blockchain and technical recruitment agency, we have deep connections, experience and proven expertise, and the ability to achieve a win for all parties in the challenging recruiting process. We can connect to highly coveted digital and tech talent with the world’s best employers.
Keiran Hathorn is the CEO & Founder of Big Wave Digital. A Sydney based niche Digital, Blockchain & Technology recruitment company. Keiran leads a high performance, experienced recruitment team, assisting companies of all sizes secure the best talent.
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