From Boolean searches to a shortlist in 10 hours: how a senior recruiter works differently with Avery
The recruiter
Giuseppe Stivaletta is a senior HR advisor and freelance recruiter with decades of experience in talent acquisition, specializing in ICT and tech roles. He operates independently - no agency behind him, no in-house team around him.
"I'm too old to do talent acquisition like I did years ago. I don't want to stay on Boolean, on LinkedIn, doing all this s***. But with Avery, it could be very, very different… game changing… because I can still do that job with a lot more experience, saving a lot of time, reaching the goal in few hours of work, than days/weeks"
The problem
Before Avery, the repetitive groundwork of sourcing - Boolean searches, LinkedIn scrolling, building long lists manually, assessing market feasibility - consumed the time that should have gone toward work that actually requires experience.
There was also a structural problem with how sourcing typically works: building a long list manually takes too long, so most recruiters skip it and go straight to a shortlist. Giuseppe's view is that this is a worse strategy - if the shortlist doesn't convert, the search starts from zero. But without tooling that makes long-listing practical, there was no real alternative.
For a recent AI lead role, building a shortlist the old way would have taken him 10 days.
Working with Avery
Giuseppe found Avery, and he uses it for two things:
Feasibility checking. Before committing to a recruitment project, he uses Avery to quickly determine whether the right profiles exist in the right geography. This used to take weeks. With Avery, it takes hours or a few days. If the talent pool doesn't match client expectations, he can identify that early and redirect - saving weeks of wasted effort.
Long-listing. Instead of going straight to a shortlist, he now builds a long list of around 20 candidates. From that pool, 3–4 typically show genuine interest - enough to close a placement without restarting the search. Avery made this workflow practical.
He does not currently use Avery's outreach feature - he contacts candidates through LinkedIn or his personal email. His results come purely from the sourcing side of the product.
The results
For the AI lead role, Giuseppe put the job description into Avery and had candidates in contact within the same week. Four are currently in the interview process. From job description to interviews underway: approximately two weeks - including the extra step of presenting candidates to the client company before their own process began. He noted that working directly inside a company, the timeline would have been even shorter.
The core comparison: 10 hours versus 10 days - his direct estimate of building a shortlist with Avery versus manually.
In their own words
"I compare the shortlist that I did for an AI lead with a shortlist that I could do manually - it's like 10 hours versus 10 days. That's a huge difference."
"I think that Avery is very, very good for people that (even) have a good experience in Talent Acquisition. An expert can properly use this tool to do a job of two, three Juniors."
Giuseppe Stivaletta, Senior HR Advisor & Freelance Recruiter, ICT Specialist
What made this different
Feasibility before commitment. Knowing whether the right profiles exist de-risks a project before significant time is spent. That question now has an answer in hours, not weeks.
Long-listing as the default. Skipping straight to a shortlist creates a fragile process. Building a proper long list first gives consistent pipeline - and Avery makes it fast enough to actually do.
Experience amplified, not replaced. The tool handles what doesn't require judgment. The parts that do - understanding motivations, negotiating conditions, assessing fit - stay fully human.
One person. The output of a team. That's the structural shift: senior expertise, applied without the manual groundwork that used to come with it.
The bigger picture
The industry average is 2+ months to fill a role. Agency fees run 15–25% of salary per hire. And recruiters spend 80% of their time on admin - not on the decisions and relationships that actually move placements forward.
For experienced independent recruiters, the problem is sharper: every hour on Boolean searches or feasibility scanning is an hour that experience isn't being used. The manual groundwork doesn't get better with seniority. It just stays slow.
That's the gap Avery closes - not by replacing the recruiter, but by handling what doesn't require one. The judgment, the relationships, the close: still human. Everything before it: faster.
Your move
Roles stay open for months. Competitors move faster. The candidates you need are out there - the question is who finds them first.
Get started with Avery and find candidates your competitors are missing →
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