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Why Bad Hiring Gets So Expensive · The Science of Leading

• 0:00
  Welcome to the show-Edwin, I keep coming back to this idea that a hiring
• 0:04
  mistake almost never shows up as one obvious problem.
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  It's more like... a bunch of small leaks.
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  A manager spending ten extra hours a week fixing things.
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  Two strong team members getting quietly frustrated.
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  Someone leaving after six months-and suddenly the role costs double.
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  Yes,
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  and that's why hiring is so often underestimated.
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  It gets treated like administration-post the job,
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  review applications, schedule interviews.
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  But hiring is not clerical work.
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  It's system design.
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  The moment you bring someone in,
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  you're shaping how work gets done,
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  how people trust each other, and how stable the team becomes over time."System
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  design" is such a different lens from "just fill the seat." And I feel
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  like most teams default to filling the seat-especially when things are
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  busy.
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  They say, we'll fix it later, we'll coach them later,
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  we'll refine the role later... and somehow "later" keeps getting more expensive.
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  It
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  does.
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  A reactive hire feels efficient in the moment.
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  There's pressure, work is piling up,
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  people are stretched-and "good enough" starts to sound reasonable.
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  But selection decisions compound.
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  And the data is quite clear on this: unstructured interviews-essentially
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  smart people having conversations and trusting instinct-are significantly
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  less predictive than structured methods.
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  Structured interviews are not perfect,
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  but they are consistently more reliable at forecasting performance.
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  That's
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  the part I think people miss.
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  It's not about doing more interviews-it's about doing them differently.
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  Because five unstructured conversations don't suddenly become rigorous
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  just because there are more of them.
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  Exactly.
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  Without structure, you're not comparing candidates-you're comparing impressions.
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  And impressions are highly sensitive to confidence,
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  similarity bias, and how smoothly someone tells their story.
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  So the real
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  cost isn't just a weak hire-it's the system convincing itself it made
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  a careful decision... when it didn't.
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  That's well put.
• 2:02
  Volume can create the illusion of rigor.
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  I've seen candidates go through six or seven interviews with no shared
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  definition of what "good" actually means.
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  By the end, all the team has is a sense of who felt impressive.
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  Seven
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  interviews and still guessing.
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  That's... efficient in all the wrong ways.
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  Let's make this concrete-say it's a customer success lead or a frontline
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  manager.
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  Not a disaster hire, just slightly off.
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  What actually happens?
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  That's the most common scenario.
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  Not failure-misalignment.
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  So you hire someone who interviews well but struggles to prioritize in
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  a high-volume environment.
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  In the first month, the manager starts stepping in.
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  By the second, peers begin compensating-rewriting emails,
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  joining calls, smoothing client issues.
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  Morale drops because high performers notice when standards shift.
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  Then over a quarter, the manager spends dozens of hours on corrective
• 3:01
  coaching instead of strategic work.
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  If the person leaves after six months,
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  you absorb replacement costs, lost productivity,
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  and something harder to measure-the team trusts the next hire a little
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  less.
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  That last part matters more than people admit.
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  Teams remember.
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  One weak hire teaches everyone that leadership either rushed,
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  guessed, or ignored warning signs.
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  Yes,
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  and culture is shaped by those moments.
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  Not by values statements.
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  By who gets hired, what gets tolerated,
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  and whether performance actually matters in practice.
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  So if a company
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  says, "we're working on culture," but they're still hiring reactively...
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  they're kind of fixing surface issues while the underlying system keeps
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  producing the same problems.
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  That's a fair way to describe it.
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  Culture is downstream of hiring decisions more often than leaders want
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  to acknowledge.
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  Alright, so if we take this seriously-what actually works
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  better than instinct?
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  Because "evidence-based hiring" can sound cold if people don't understand
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  what it means.
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  It's not cold at all.
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  It's just deliberate.
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  First, you define the role clearly-what outcomes matter in the first
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  six to twelve months.
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  Second, you design structured interviews tied to those outcomes.
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  Third, you use job-relevant assessments where possible-work samples,
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  simulations, case exercises.
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  These approaches consistently outperform résumé screening and intuition
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  because they observe capability directly instead of inferring it."Observe
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  capability instead of infer it." That's basically the résumé problem.
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  You see a strong brand name or a polished profile,
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  and your brain fills in the gaps with assumptions.
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  Exactly.
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  Résumés are proxies.
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  Work samples are evidence.
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  If you're hiring a sales manager,
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  don't just ask about leadership-give them a pipeline scenario and see
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  how they think.
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  If you're hiring a manager, present a real performance issue and ask
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  how they'd respond.
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  Now you're evaluating judgment in context.
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  And that probably levels the
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  playing field a bit.
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  Someone who isn't naturally charismatic in an interview still has a way
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  to demonstrate how they think.
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  Yes,
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  and that's where selection becomes both more predictive and more equitable.
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  I
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  also want to touch on something people tend to dismiss-employer brand
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  and candidate experience.
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  It can sound superficial, like it's about careers pages and nice emails.
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  But it clearly has an impact.
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  It does,
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  because it shapes both who applies and who accepts.
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  If your process is slow, unclear,
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  or inconsistent, strong candidates interpret that as a signal about how
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  decisions are made internally.
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  Candidate experience is not separate from culture-it's the first demonstration
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  of it.
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  So when there's a two-week silence after a final interview,
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  that's not neutral.
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  That is the experience.
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  Exactly.
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  And this ties into a tension leaders often misunderstand-speed versus
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  rigor.
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  They assume rigor slows things down.
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  In reality, lack of clarity slows things down more.
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  A structured process can move quickly because decisions are easier to
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  make when criteria are defined.
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  So the goal isn't to slow down-it's to
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  stop doing things that feel fast but create rework later.
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  Yes,
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  and I'd refine that further.
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  The issue isn't just speed-it's inconsistency.
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  Many organizations are busy, but not rigorous.
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  They add interviews instead of improving questions.
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  They use vague scorecards-"executive presence," "culture fit," "strong
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  communicator"-without defining what those actually mean in behavior."Executive
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  presence" might be the most flexible phrase in hiring.
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  It can mean almost anything-or nothing.
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  And when criteria are vague,
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  decisions become social rather than analytical.
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  The most confident or senior voice can dominate.
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  That's not selection-that's group dynamics influencing an outcome.
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  Which
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  is how companies end up optimizing for immediate relief instead of long-term
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  strength.
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  "We just need someone now" turns into "we'll deal with the consequences
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  later."That's the deeper issue.
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  Hiring for immediate coverage is sometimes necessary,
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  but if you ignore adaptability,
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  learning ability, and how someone fits into the broader system,
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  you may solve a short-term gap while creating long-term instability.
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  Strong hiring asks a different question-not just can this person do the
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  job today, but can they contribute to where the organization is going.
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  And
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  I think that's the uncomfortable part.
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  When leaders say, "we just need a body," they're not just describing
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  urgency-they're defining the level of future they're willing to build.
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  Yes.
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  So the real question isn't whether the role gets filled.
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  It's whether you're hiring for the job as it exists today... or for the
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  organization you're trying to become.