Navigating the Hiring Process: Common Mistakes and How To Avoid Them

It starts innocently. A handshake, a smile, a sense that “this person just gets it.” And before the first question lands, your brain’s already filing them under “probably a yes.”

The problem is, that first impression isn’t about competence. It’s about chemistry. And chemistry, when unchecked, can wreck your hiring process.

We like to think we’re great at reading people. But instincts — no matter how experienced you are — are stories your brain tells to make a fast decision. When hiring becomes personal, objectivity quietly leaves the room.

This isn’t about removing the human side of hiring. It’s about giving it the structure it needs to make better, fairer, and more accurate decisions. So let’s unpack what’s going wrong, how to fix it, and what you can start doing differently tomorrow.

Why hiring feels like dating, and performs just as badly

The moment you “just get a good feeling” about a candidate, you’re no longer interviewing — you’re speed-dating with a confirmation bias. And that creates a dangerous shortcut: you unconsciously spend the rest of the conversation trying to prove you were right.

Here’s what that does:

• You start ignoring weak answers because you like them.
• You reinterpret vague responses as strengths.
• You skip digging into any red flags because “they seem sharp.”

Want to fix it? Force objectivity early. Before you speak to a candidate, write down three specific, observable things you want to assess. For example:

• Can they break down complex problems clearly?
• Do they have examples of self-directed work?
• Can they explain why they made specific past decisions?

These questions keep you grounded when the charm offensive starts. And if someone seems amazing but can’t give a coherent answer to a basic scenario, that tells you something more reliable than likability ever could.

Bias doesn’t look like bias when it feels like instinct

Bias rarely feels malicious. It feels like comfort. Familiarity. A shared background. Someone who reminds you of… you.

This makes bias difficult to spot because it often hides behind compliments like:

• “They’d be great to grab a drink with.”
• “They just get our vibe.”
• “They remind me of someone who did really well here.”

None of those things are about skills or potential.

Here’s an exercise: take your last few hires and write down what each person had in common before they joined. If you start seeing patterns like shared hobbies, schools, accents, or even energy levels — that’s not just coincidence. That’s hiring based on social likeness, not role-fit.

To work around it, start using blind work samples earlier in the funnel. Strip names, schools, even CVs if you can. Judge the work, not the story. This won’t fix everything, but it’s a massive first step toward surfacing overlooked talent.

Unstructured interviews are a warm bath — and just as productive

Casual interviews feel good. But they rarely tell you anything useful. Why? Because people are better at telling stories than proving skills. And unless you’re hiring a TED Talk speaker, stories don’t equal performance.

The fix isn’t complicated. Start by building a structured interview scorecard.

Here’s what goes in it:

1. Define 3 to 5 core competencies for the role (not buzzwords — actual things they need to do).
2. Create 1 situational and 1 behavioral question for each competency.
3. Predefine what a strong, average, and weak answer looks like.

This isn’t about being robotic. You can still have a human conversation — but now you’re evaluating against the same criteria each time.

Bonus: use a 1–4 scoring scale instead of 1–5. It forces a decision. No more hiding behind a safe middle score.

When instinct isn’t the enemy, but still needs a seatbelt

It’s easy to swing too far in the other direction and declare that intuition is the villain. It’s not. But it needs constraints.

Think of intuition as the highlighter, not the pen. It can flag something to pay attention to — but it shouldn’t be the thing that makes the final call.

Use your gut to ask better questions:

• “I liked them a lot — am I being charmed or is there substance?”
• “Something feels off — did I probe deep enough to find out why?”
• “They remind me of someone — is that helping or hurting my judgment?”

When you treat intuition as a prompt for further investigation — not a verdict — you turn instinct into a useful tool rather than a liability.

The price of getting it wrong doesn’t show up all at once

Bad hires don’t announce themselves on day one. They trickle in. A missed deadline here. A poor client interaction there. Eventually, someone asks, “How did this person get through?”

Here’s what usually gets overlooked:

• The hiring cost (advertising, hours spent, recruiter fees)
• The ramp-up cost (training, shadowing, onboarding)
• The cultural cost (demotivation, resentment, internal friction)
• The exit cost (notice period, severance, reputation)

The best defense? Define success before you hire. Not the job description — actual outcomes. What will this person need to deliver in their first 90 days? What will the team look like if they succeed? What will it feel like if they don’t?

Hire with those answers in mind, not just the feeling of a “great chat.”

Structure doesn’t remove personality — it reveals potential

There’s a fear that structured hiring turns candidates into numbers. It doesn’t. It just stops us from mistaking confidence for capability.

Think of structure like subtitles in a film. It doesn’t replace what’s happening — it helps you make sense of it.

When you ask the same questions, with the same scoring, across every candidate, you create an environment where the best answers stand out. You give quieter, less polished candidates the same opportunity to shine as the extroverts. You make it about performance, not presentation.

Want to keep the process human? Book a second round where candidates meet the team informally — but only after they’ve cleared a structured evaluation. Feelings can have a place. They just don’t belong at the front of the queue.

Pushback isn’t about the process — it’s about identity

One of the biggest blockers to structured hiring? Ego.

Hiring has long been positioned as a kind of founder superpower. “I just know how to spot talent.” That’s hard to walk back. But if you want the team to change, you have to reframe it.

Here’s how to build buy-in:

• Start small. Pilot structured interviews in one department.
• Share the data. Show how the structured process improved outcomes.
• Involve managers in building the interview kits — so it’s theirs, not HR’s.
• Celebrate hires that came from the new process — make success visible.

When people feel ownership, resistance turns into advocacy.

If you can’t define great, you’ll keep hiring average

You can’t assess what you haven’t defined.

A lot of “bad hires” aren’t bad people — they’re people hired for vague outcomes. “We need someone proactive.” What does that even mean? “We want someone who can lead.” Okay, lead what?

Get brutally specific. What does success look like in 30, 60, and 90 days? What’s the hardest part of the role? What behaviors make someone thrive on this team?

Now reverse-engineer questions that surface those answers. Use past situations, not hypotheticals. Ask for detail. Ask for decisions made. Ask what went wrong.

The clearer you are on what good looks like, the faster you’ll spot it when it walks in.

Objectivity doesn’t mean cold. It means clear.

Hiring is emotional because people are emotional. That’s not a bad thing. But emotions without structure don’t scale.

When you make the process predictable, you make the outcome less risky. When you define success, you give everyone a target. When you score consistently, you build trust — in the team, in the outcome, and in yourself.

And when you stop making hiring personal, ironically, you start making it fair.

Not softer. Not colder. Just better.