14/10/2026
I need to say something, and I'm not going to dress it up too much. 😤
This year alone, I've watched businesses run people through four, five, sometimes more interview stages for roles paying £25-26k. Not senior hires. Not six-figure positions where due diligence genuinely matters. Entry-level and trainee roles, dragged out over six, seven, eight weeks, sometimes longer, with barely any feedback in between.
I understand wanting the right person. I really do. But somewhere along the way, "being thorough" turned into "meet Mary, then Tom, then Peter, then whoever else happens to be free that week," without anyone stopping to ask what each stage is actually trying to find out. Is it competency-based? Is there a scoring system? Is it a presentation, a working interview, a chat? If nobody can answer that, it's not a process, it's just delay with extra steps.
Here's what it costs you. I had someone recently, strong, experienced, exactly what the client wanted, who pulled out after being asked to wait nine days for feedback and then sit through yet another interview. Nine days. She'd already done two. She said she couldn't do it again and walked. When I fed that back to the client, the response was basically a shrug. What they didn't clock is that she'll tell people. People always do. And a reputation for dragging people through the wringer follows a business a lot further than it thinks.
Hiring is a relationship, and like any relationship, it involves compromise. Nobody is ever going to be a hundred percent right on paper. If you're holding out for someone with zero question marks against them, you're not being thorough, you're avoiding a decision. And meanwhile, the good people you're deliberating over are having conversations with businesses that actually know how to make one.
If you're genuinely torn on someone, here's an idea: bring them in for a proper working interview and find out for real, rather than turning one small doubt into another three weeks of silence.
Know what you're trying to find out at each stage. Know why the process exists. And know that every extra week you take is a week someone else might not be waiting around for you to decide.
