What ChatGPT won't tell you about hiring channels and talent acquisition costs

Hey everyone 👋

We’re On The Spot and we’re hiring. 

Here you say “Hi On The Spot” and give us a round of applause, because today we’re sharing real CPCs, conversion rates, and all that recruiting pains and little beauties nobody usually talks about. So, let’s call this a bit of a therapy with a healthy dose of black humour to burnt budgets.

We’re not claiming to hold the ultimate truth — just sharing what nine years of building R&D teams has taught us. This post will be useful if you’re hiring (or planning to hire) in Poland. You’ll be able to compare your own numbers, spot the leaks in your funnel, or drop the stuff that isn’t working.

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💡Here’s the setup:

On paper, Poland looks fantastic. 400,000+ tech specialists, offers up 68% this year, senior dev salaries of around  $5,200–$8,800/month. Sounds great until you face the ghosted candidates, vanished ad budgets, and endless unanswered LinkedIn messages.

So to check if it’s just us (spoiler: it’s not), we tracked every single channel, measured conversions, and then compared the results with ChatGPT’s CPC benchmarks.

😊Good news: we fit into the global range.
😕Bad news: ChatGPT’s wisdom turned out to be an inch deep and a mile wide.

Because the devil, as always, is in the details.

Let’s take a closer look at the real cost of hiring in Poland and the little white lies ChatGPT forgot to mention.

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[fs-toc-h2] Key takeaways for founders

[fs-toc-omit]The TL;DR for founders

The Polish tech talent market is tough and highly competitive, and yet it remains a major hub for talent in the region. Though you really have to dance to win the best candidates.

The top three recruitment channels that work for us:

• LinkedIn (outreach)
• Referrals
• Email newsletters
  

No rocket science, though. Just channels spiced up with trust and real connections — and the hard part is making sure they’re actually in place.

Below is the full story and how our numbers differ from what ChatGPT, in all its wisdom, recommends.

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ChatGPT’s version of CPC benchmarks

According to ChatGPT, there are three levels of the recruiting game:

• Easy. Plug-and-play channels with low effort and straightforward targeting.
  
• Medium. Channels that take a bit more effort. Prices can be reasonable, but you actually need to engage, show up, and invest time.
  
• Hard. Requires creative energy, technical know-how, and a long-term commitment to community.

If you just looked at this chart, you’d think all you need is a credit card and a friendly copywriter. If only.

[fs-toc-h2] Our 11 hiring channels and their CPC

[fs-toc-omit]How we spent our money and what worked (and what didn’t)

Let’s see what really happened when we took our budgets for a walk. To keep the experiment clean, we left out sourcer work and didn’t count recruiter salaries. 

Here’s basically the inner workings of our sourcing engine — and the numbers behind it.

• Cold LinkedIn outreach: the workhorse of modern recruiting
  
  ‍‍Here’s the paradox: everyone complains about cold LinkedIn outreach, everyone hates the spam but 80% of our hires in 2025 came directly from this channel.
  
  Yes, it’s not glamorous. Yes, many candidates ignore messages. But the numbers don’t lie: 8 out of 10 hires started with a cold message on LinkedIn.
  
  Of course, attribution plays a big role. A candidate might respond via LinkedIn, but actually warm up by attending our TechSpot events or spotting us in a local community. But the only way to connect with them is to consistently show up where they are. That’s why we’re active in the market, building our recruiters’ professional profiles, and literally engaging with the tech community.
  
  Just recently, we filled a Senior Data Analyst role for a US-based startup in 10 days – directly through LinkedIn outreach. If ever there was proof that it works, that’s it.

• LinkedIn organic: simple, proven, working
  
  Candidates still scroll their feed to find jobs. Our regular organic posts consistently pull in a 6.3% CTR at zero budget. Standard job posts attract between 2,000 and 4,000 views without any paid boosts. And when even a free post can fill a pipeline, it’s clear this channel is still very much alive.

• LinkedIn Ads: our expensive lessons
  
  We have a complicated relationship with LinkedIn Ads. Like many, we were drawn in by the promise of precise targeting and a feed full of qualified professionals. In reality, the average CPC was $2.67 - $10, with a CTR of just 0.6%.
  
  While clicks themselves could be relatively cheap, the cost for a qualified lead climbed to $40–$120. We now use LinkedIn Ads only to give a gentle nudge to posts that are already getting traction. Because paying a lot to be ignored hurts.

• Meta Ads: surprisingly cheap clicks, but very specific
  
  If our relationship with LinkedIn Ads was complicated, Meta really surprised us. Our campaigns delivered a super low CPC of $0.12 with a solid CTR of 3.94%.
  
  However, the targeting lacked LinkedIn's depth for finding specific senior engineers. Instead, we found Meta Ads excel at top-of-funnel brand awareness and for attracting UX/UI designers and artists. Astonishing, we know.‍

• Recruiting agencies: thanks, but we’ll take it from here
  
  ‍We used to rely on recruiting agencies quite a bit. It felt like a tangible, reliable channel until the invoices started rolling in.
  
  Official stats say agency fees hover around 15–20% of the annual salary. In our case, they could be around $10,000-$15,000 per hire. Ouch.
  
  We almost never use them anymore, unless the role is critical or absolutely on fire. In those cases, we sometimes turn to freelance recruiters, who bring more flexibility and usually better results.
  
  Why we moved away from agencies:
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  • Too expensive. Period.
  • Pushing their own candidates. Agencies often rely on outsourcing-style experience, where a solid junior can be sold as a senior.
  • Lack of tech expertise. Our roles are complex, and so are our expectations. Agencies tend to operate on general assumptions that don’t match our reality.
  • They don’t go deep. Most agencies don’t take time to understand the tech stack and team culture — and that’s exactly what makes the difference in hiring.

[space]We know it sounds a bit bold, but we recruit better than most of those specialized agencies. Because when you’ve been building engineering teams for nearly a decade, you start to understand what kind of candidates you need. 

• Job board ads: lots of CVs but no actual hires
  
  Paid ads on local job boards like NoFluffJobs, JustJoinIT, and BulldogJob do bring volume, especially for mainstream roles like Java, QA, and frontend, with CTRs reaching up to 15%.
  
  But here’s the catch: despite spending $80–$250 per listing, we haven’t made a single direct hire through them. Candidates come in cold, without any understanding of who we are or how we work. So the connection just doesn’t click.
  
  Ironically, free postings did a better job. When we simply shared roles without paid boosts, we got good applications and even a few hires. So yes, the best-performing job board ads were the ones we didn’t pay for.

• Local tech communities: the long game for tough roles
  
  We’ve built relationships with hundreds of Polish tech communities — from 100-person chats to massive 80k-member groups across Slack, Discord, and Telegram.
  

[space]These networks come in two flavors — paid and organic. The first type monetizes their audience reach and offers sponsored posts or partnerships that open doors to highly relevant audiences. The second type remains non-profit, where visibility is earned by showing up, sharing knowledge, and slowly becoming a familiar name.

[space]According to our data, the average CPC for paid channels sits around $0.60 with a 4.31% CTR — not bad for something that still feels half art, half anthropology.

[space]Both paid and organic channels differ in community culture. Each community operates by its own rules: Linux channels respect technical credibility, Java groups value local connections, and everyone appreciates when you sound like a human rather than a recruiting bot. Understanding these differences is key.

In general, we focus on building relationships. Like all relationships, some take time to develop, but people ultimately appreciate the contributions and value you bring.

• Internal newsletters: loyalty pays off
  
  Somehow, while we were busy measuring other channels, our newsletter quietly grew to over 6,000 subscribers and became our warmest talent pool:
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  • 60-78% open rates
    
  • $1.23 CPC
    
  • 11.9% CTR‍

[space]Most subscribers found us through TechSpot events (our own events, which we’ll tell you more about below) or referrals. They already know we're humans, not just another recruiting spam list. We share jobs and event invites, but the real value is the relationship. We once hired a Director of Engineering for a cybersecurity startup from a newsletter sent.

• Referral program: your good name brings you hires
  
  Referrals remain among the most reliable sources of quality candidates. They account for 3-15% of our annual hires, with costs ranging from $500 to $5,000 per successful placement.
  
  What makes this channel work is the relationships we've built with current and former team members and partners over the years. People refer others because they understand our culture and want to work with those they know and trust.‍

• Tech events: no hires, but all the trust
  
  When we started TechSpot – our tech events in Poland – we weren't thinking about recruitment. We were interested in creating a space where our engineers could discuss architecture challenges. Somehow, through what we can only describe as accidental community building, we became known for local tech events that now draw 200+ engineers per event and speakers from Google Cloud, Orca Security, Unity, Wise, Fibery and many more.
  
  At around $5,000-$9,000 per event, we've accepted that we're hosting very expensive networking parties with questionable ROI (though we've recently started selling tickets and actually covering our costs). But the trust built over pizza and beer pays off. Engineers remember the conversations and often return later or refer friends, even if direct hires don’t happen immediately.

• PR articles on job boards: our $2,000 mistake(s)?
  
  We spent $2,000 on a featured article in local media, convinced it would showcase our employer brand to thousands of Polish developers. We got 2000 views and exactly zero hires.
  
  It turns out developers in Poland don't read branded content on job boards – or if they do, they certainly don't act on it. We could have used that $2,000 sponsoring 5 tech events, buying pizza and beer. At least that way we'd have actual conversations with engineers and maybe a few extra pounds of goodwill.

[fs-toc-h2] Comparing AI estimates with our data

[fs-toc-omit]ChatGPT’s estimates vs. our reality

ChatGPT’s numbers are technically correct if you ignore nine years of context.

Here’s how its CPC predictions stack up against what we experienced:

‍On the surface, the numbers look similar — but the devil’s in the details.

Behind every CPC, there’s a story of context, timing, and human factors that the AI model can’t fully capture.

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[fs-toc-h2] Conclusion: what works in tech hiring

[fs-toc-omit]The bottom line

Recruiting in Poland is about long-term relationships, connections, and referrals – not just pouring money into ad campaigns and hoping for unicorns. Our best hires came from direct LinkedIn outreach, genuine referrals, and honest emails.

The war for talent here is won by reputation, trust, and a good internal meme economy. Visibility and a healthy sense of humor – that’s the only way to keep both sanity and hiring funnel alive.

And that’s something ChatGPT doesn’t get. Yet 🌝
 

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About the author

Liza Makarevich is a Chief Success Manager at On The Spot Development. She has spent over 10 years helping startups and fast-growing tech companies build R&D teams and recruit tech talent in Poland.

Feel free to contact her via LinkedIn or email.