Why Your Hiring Process Is Broken

I’m going to keep this one simple, because it doesn’t need dressing up.

If you keep hiring, and it keeps not working, your process is broken.

Not the market. Not the candidates. The process.

I know that’s not always what people want to hear, but it’s where the control actually sits.

Most hiring processes look fine on the surface. CVs come in, interviews happen, offers get made.

So it feels like something is happening.

But when you look a bit closer, it’s usually inconsistent.

Different people asking different questions.
Different standards depending on how urgent the hire feels.
Decisions being made on instinct instead of anything measurable.

And the classic one… “we just had a good feeling about them.”

That line has cost businesses a lot of money over the years.

Because feeling isn’t the same as evidence.

Salespeople are trained to build rapport quickly. That’s literally part of the job. So if your process leans heavily on how someone comes across in a conversation, you’re playing right into their strengths.

You’re not testing anything new.

A solid hiring process should do the opposite. It should go beyond the surface.

It should make it easy to compare candidates properly. It should highlight differences in how people think, how they approach problems, how consistent they’ve been.

Not just how likeable they are for an hour.

And no, that doesn’t mean turning your interviews into some overcomplicated, corporate nightmare.

It just means having a clear structure and actually sticking to it.

Same core questions.
Same expectations.
Same way of assessing answers.

It’s not exciting. But it works.

The reason most businesses don’t do this consistently is because it requires discipline.

It’s easier to “go with your gut”, especially when you need someone quickly.

But quick decisions are often the ones you end up redoing later.

If hiring feels harder than it should, or results are hit and miss, it’s worth stepping back and asking one question.

“If someone else looked at our process, would it make sense to them?”

If the answer is no, that’s your starting point.