Some of the best recruitment decisions I have ever made surprised me. So did some of the worst. I have interviewed candidates who seemed exceptional, impressed every member of the interview panel and appeared to be exactly what the organisation needed, only to discover later that they struggled in the role. Equally, I have appointed people at the very last minute, wondering whether we had taken too great a risk, only to watch them become some of the finest colleagues I have ever worked alongside. Those experiences taught me something that no recruitment course ever really explains. Hiring is never about certainty. It is about making the best judgement you can with the evidence available at the time.
That is what makes recruitment one of leadership’s greatest responsibilities. Every appointment changes an organisation in ways that are impossible to predict completely. The right person strengthens culture, improves relationships and quietly raises the standards of everyone around them. The wrong appointment does the opposite, often creating challenges that last far longer than anyone imagined during the interview. It is tempting to believe there is a perfect recruitment process that guarantees success, but after many years of interviewing candidates, reading references and appointing colleagues, I have become convinced that no such process exists. Good recruitment is not about removing uncertainty. It is about managing it wisely.
Beyond the Interview
One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is placing too much weight on interview performance. Interviews reward a very particular set of skills. They favour people who think quickly, communicate confidently and remain composed under pressure. Those qualities are valuable, but they are not the job itself. Some people interview brilliantly and then struggle to collaborate, accept feedback or deliver consistently once they arrive. Others leave the interview convinced they have underperformed, yet quietly become some of the strongest people in the organisation.
That is why I have always preferred interviews that gradually become conversations. Once candidates begin to relax, they stop performing quite so much. The rehearsed answers become less important and genuine curiosity begins to emerge. You discover how they think, how they listen, what excites them and whether they are interested only in securing the role or in contributing to something bigger than themselves. By the end of a good interview, I am not trying to decide whether somebody impressed me. I am trying to decide whether this is someone I could genuinely work alongside for years to come.
Looking For Character, Not Clones
Recruitment is also full of hidden biases. Human beings naturally feel comfortable with people who communicate in familiar ways, share similar experiences or remind us of ourselves. Left unchecked, those preferences quietly influence our decisions. We begin mistaking familiarity for suitability, often without realising it. Diverse interview panels, structured questioning and careful professional discussion all help reduce that risk because they force us to challenge our own assumptions rather than simply confirming them.
The strongest appointments I have made have rarely been people who thought exactly like me. What mattered far more was whether they believed in the purpose of the organisation. In every sector there is a mission that should sit above individual ambition. The candidates who stand out are usually the ones who ask thoughtful questions about that purpose, the people they will be serving and the difference they hope to make. Salary, progression and opportunities all matter, and sensible candidates should ask about them, but I have always been drawn towards people whose attention naturally turns towards the organisation before it turns towards themselves. Skills can be developed. Knowledge can be taught. Shared values are much harder to create after someone has joined.
Recruitment Is a Two Way Conversation
Organisations sometimes forget that interviews are not one sided assessments. Every interaction is shaping the candidate’s opinion just as much as the candidate is shaping ours. Long before the first formal question is asked, people are already deciding what it might feel like to work there. They notice how reception staff are treated, whether interviewers are prepared, whether meetings begin on time and whether conversations feel welcoming or transactional. Small details that seem insignificant to the organisation often become powerful indicators of culture for the person sitting across the table.
The same continues once an offer has been accepted. People begin deciding whether they belong remarkably quickly. Formal inductions are important, but belonging is usually created through ordinary conversations, thoughtful gestures and colleagues who make someone feel genuinely welcome. Recruitment therefore extends far beyond selecting the right person. It includes demonstrating the culture you hope they will experience and ensuring their first impressions are reinforced rather than contradicted once they arrive.
Judgement, Responsibility and Patience
One area that should never be compromised is safe and responsible recruitment. Every organisation has a duty to carry out appropriate background checks, verify information carefully and follow the procedures designed to protect colleagues, customers and those they serve. These safeguards are not bureaucratic obstacles that delay recruitment. They are essential responsibilities. Confidence, charisma and an outstanding interview should never persuade us to ignore the checks that exist for very good reasons. Responsible recruitment protects far more than today’s vacancy. It protects the future of the organisation itself.
Patience is equally important. Vacancies create pressure. Teams become stretched, workloads increase and everyone understandably wants the problem solved as quickly as possible. Yet experience has taught me that appointing the wrong person usually creates far more work than waiting a little longer for the right one. I have chosen not to appoint anyone on several occasions because none of the candidates felt right. It was never an easy decision. Everyone had to carry additional work for a while, including me, but the alternative would almost certainly have been worse. A poor appointment demands endless time, energy and management that could have been invested elsewhere. A vacancy creates temporary pressure. The wrong appointment can create years of it.
Recruitment will never become an exact science, and perhaps that is exactly as it should be. Human beings are wonderfully complex, capable of surprising us in both positive and disappointing ways. The responsibility of leadership is not to predict the future perfectly but to make thoughtful, fair and well-informed judgements with the information available. Every interview, every conversation, every reference and every observation contributes another piece to the picture, but none of them tells the whole story on its own.
That is why hiring is never about certainty. It is about judgement, patience and the courage to wait when the right person has not yet appeared. Because while vacancies eventually disappear, the people we choose shape our organisations long after the interview has ended.
If you enjoyed this article, you can continue exploring these ideas through the growing collection of short leadership videos published across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. Wherever you choose to follow, I hope the reflections encourage you to think a little differently about the quieter moments that shape leadership every day.