Breaking the Cycle: What Recruitment Can Learn from Higher Education’s Digital Transformation

A year ago, I stepped into the recruitment world after spending most of my career in Higher Education. Coming into a completely new sector was exciting—but also a little daunting. Yet, I quickly realised many of the challenges that recruiters face aren’t unique to recruitment. One of the biggest? Digital Transformation. When I first encountered Digital Transformation in HE, it was all about enhancing the learning experience—introducing online resources, blended learning, and eventually full-scale virtual classrooms. But for years, progress was slow. Universities are not known for adapting quickly, and change only really happened in small, incremental steps. Then COVID hit. Suddenly, digital learning wasn’t a future ambition—it was a necessity. Overnight, campuses went fully online, lectures were streamed, student support was digital-first, and education became flexible in a way it had never been before. Students adapted, and in many cases, thrived under this new model. And then… just as quickly, some HE Institutions backtracked. As soon as restrictions lifted, the push to return to pre-pandemic ways, and specifically on- campus learning began, despite many students preferring the flexibility that digital solutions offered. Sound familiar? That’s because recruitment follows the same boom-and-bust cycle. Historically, when the market picks up, firms grow by hiring more recruiters. More people = more vacancies filled = growth, right? But when things slow down, teams shrink, and then businesses find themselves rebuilding from scratch when demand rises again. This approach leads to instability, inefficiency, and constant firefighting, forcing firms into a reactive state instead of a strategic one. The lesson from HE is clear: Transformation only works if it’s embraced long-term, not just as a crisis solution. If recruitment continues to treat technology as a short-term fix rather than a fundamental shift, it will never escape this cycle. But if firms invest in digital tools they can build real resilience. Instead of growing and shrinking with the market, they can stay adaptable, shape their own stability, and maintain expertise even in uncertain times. The real question is: Will recruitment make the same mistake Higher Ed did—reverting to old habits? Or will it embrace technology as the key to lasting success? Written by Jackie Sherlock