“The Breakthrough Hiring Playbook” – Issue 2
After ten years in tech recruitment, one thing still surprises me. For an industry as fast-paced and innovative as tech, there is still a huge amount of outdated, recycled advice being shared when it comes to hiring. Especially online!
Nowhere is that clearer than LinkedIn.
You will see posts every week telling tech companies how they should hire engineers. Threads that sound clever, but fall apart in the real world. Advice that might suit a big corporate with unlimited time and money but is a disaster for startups and scaleups trying to move quickly, build product, and hire well under pressure.
So… I have searched LinkedIn, and written down some of the worst advice that I have seen. I promised not to name and shame. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and no doubt they have their reasons to believe these points.
Whilst I can always see a point of view, ‘The Breakthrough Hiring Playbook’ is built from my experience and my experience only. It is what has worked for me, and how I would support any of my customers if they asked me what to do next.
Every example below comes from actual posts on LinkedIn in the last two months. Some from hiring managers. Some from internal recruiters. Some from well-meaning advisors who have not made a hire since you needed a BlackBerry to check your email. (sorry, not sorry!)
Let’s get into it..
1. “Hire slow, fire fast” “Hiring slow helps you avoid mistakes and keep standards high. It is better to wait months for the right person than make a rushed decision.” – Talent Partner, Series A SaaS Startup
This one gets parroted everywhere. Usually by people who have never had to explain to the CTO why your only frontend dev is now doing backend, QA, DevOps and making tea.
Taking too long to hire does not help you avoid mistakes. It just makes you slow. Great candidates drop out. Teams get overstretched. Product falls behind. And someone else makes the hire before you do.
What to do instead: Build a clear process, run fast and focused hiring loops, and engage candidates properly from day one. The best engineers are off the market in under a week. If your process takes longer than a long-haul flight with two layovers, fix it.
2. “Only hire A players” “If you want to build a world class engineering team, you should only hire A players who have already worked at top companies.” – CTO, VC backed fintech
What is an A player? No one really knows. But they are apparently working at Google, get up at 4am, meditate, write clean code, and somehow still reply to Slack within 30 seconds.
The obsession with A players usually leads to long hiring processes, unnecessary rejections, and ignoring great engineers who would absolutely thrive in your business.
What to do instead: Hire people who solve problems, write good code, work well in chaos, and can grow as your company does. You are building a team, not assembling the Avengers.
3. “Culture fit is the most important thing” “It does not matter how good their skills are, if they are not a culture fit, it will not work.” – Internal Recruiter, Series B healthtech company
This one often ends up being used to hire people who all drink the same IPA, use the same Notion templates, and say “let’s circle back” in meetings. It narrows your pipeline and blocks diversity.
Culture fit should not mean “same as us.” Unless you want an echo chamber where everyone agrees with each other and no one challenges anything (aka the fastest route to average).
What to do instead: Look for values alignment. Someone who buys into your mission and can work in your environment. Teams grow stronger when you add new perspectives – not when you clone the founder’s personality.
4. “Wait for the perfect candidate” “We will just keep interviewing until we find someone who ticks all the boxes. We only get one shot at this hire.” – Founding Engineer, early stage AI startup
You want someone who has worked in your industry, built your exact product, used your stack, scaled the team, written documentation and still wants to join a 10 person startup for average pay and more stress?
Good luck.
Perfect does not exist. Holding out just slows you down and lets great people slip through. It is hiring-by-Fantasy-Football. Lots of theory, not enough wins.
What to do instead: Hire the 8 or 9 out of 10 who can grow into a 10. That is how real teams scale. Especially in tech where speed and adaptability matter more than perfection.
5. “Top engineers do not negotiate” “If they are serious about the role, they will just accept the offer. If they push back, they are not the right culture fit.” – IT Recruiter with 10 years experience
If someone said this about a house offer, you would laugh. But it gets thrown around in hiring like it is deep wisdom. Spoiler alert: good engineers do negotiate. Because they are smart. Because they want clarity. And because they know their value.
What to do instead: Be open. Talk honestly about salary, equity, and the trade-offs. If you cannot have a grown-up conversation at offer stage, good luck keeping them around when things get tough.
Bonus 6. “Do not use recruiters, they are a waste of money” “We have been advised by our investor not to use external recruiters. They said they are expensive and add no real value.” – Seed stage AI founder (via investor)
This one always gets me. You will spend thousands flying the team to an offsite to talk about hiring goals over beanbags and whiteboards, but 25 percent on a life-changing hire is somehow too much?
Like engineers, there are good and bad recruiters. But writing them all off because you had a bad experience is like saying all restaurants are terrible because you once got food poisoning at an airport Wetherspoons. (maybe Tilted Kilt for my US readers).
I have been doing this for over 10 years. I have helped companies scale from 2 to 50 people. I usually know within ten minutes what is slowing a company down and how to fix it. Good recruiters are not CV factories. They are your unfair advantage.
What to do instead: Work with recruiters who get it. Who understand product, pace, and the market. Who care about your brand as much as you do. Treat them like part of your business, and they will deliver like they are part of it.
These six myths are everywhere. And I see them cost teams time, money, and momentum every single week. Hiring is hard. It is also fixable. The companies that move fast, think clearly, and focus on what actually matters always win.
More to come in the next edition of “The Breakthrough Hiring Playbook”. The next newsletter will be on “Hiring in 2025 Means Thinking Like a Candidate, Not a Company. The mindset shift that will define the winners!!
