Hiring well isn’t just a skill. It’s leverage. Get it right, and the compounding returns are massive. Get it wrong, and you don’t just waste money. You risk eroding trust, slowing momentum, and hurting the people already on your team.
Instead of checking boxes, focus on understanding people.
What to look for, and what to avoid
Yes, skills matter. But I care more about potential: who someone could become once they’re in the right environment. That means I look for:
- Motivation
- Self-awareness
- Emotional intelligence
- Curiosity and adaptability
- Drive to learn and grow
- And, ideally, someone I can learn from too
I don’t need someone to tick every box on day one. I need someone who’s wired to learn, collaborate, and raise the bar over time.
A keen eye, good taste, or strong design instincts? Absolutely.
But tools, techniques, and frameworks can be taught… or picked up alongside others on the team. What I can’t teach is hunger, humility, and the will to grow.
What I avoid is the opposite: people with strong tools but weak fundamentals, low self-awareness, low drive, or a fixed mindset. Designers who won’t grow, won’t collaborate, or won’t take feedback eventually slow a team down.
The myth of the perfect hire
If you’re looking for someone who already fits the future of your team perfectly, you’re not hiring. You’re outsourcing evolution.
No one joins ready-made for the next chapter. That’s not how growth works. Good hiring means knowing what to prioritise, what can be developed, and what will unlock the most value over time.
Watch out for ‘passion fruits’!
Over the years, I’ve seen a recurring hiring mistake… placing too much weight on someone’s “passion” alone.
Don’t get me wrong, passion is energising but it’s not a strategy. It’s a signal, not a substitute. On its own, it doesn’t guarantee readiness, skill, or fit.
Over-the-top displays of passion can sometimes mask what’s missing: experience, emotional intelligence, or the ability to navigate real-world constraints. Hiring managers can get swept up in the energy and overlook clear gaps.
It’s a textbook example of the Halo Effect, where one positive trait distorts your judgement across the board.
Some hiring patterns have become what I call “passion fruit”. Sweet on the surface, but soft underneath when it comes to real capability.
So yes, look for energy. Look for interest and drive. But don’t let it blind you. Passion should never be the sole reason to make a hire.
Fit goes both ways, and it matters more than you think
Some of the best people I’ve interviewed, I didn’t hire.
Not because they weren’t talented. Not because I didn’t like them. In fact, I’ve kept in touch with some of them for over the years. They were exceptional. Just not the right fit for that team, that environment, or that moment in time.
Hiring isn’t about assembling a collection of top performers. It’s about building a team that functions. You could have a world-class striker who just doesn’t fit your system. Not because they’re not good enough, but because context matters. The chemistry, the culture, the shape of the work… it all plays a role.
The effects of a bad hire go beyond budgets and headcount. They show up in trust, energy, and momentum… and they spread.
When hiring goes wrong
A bad hire isn’t just a bump in the road. It ripples through everything.
Teams slow down. Tension builds. Morale dips. Good people start questioning things. And fixing it? That takes time, energy, and trust you may not get back.
It’s not just about sunk cost. It’s about lost momentum, damaged dynamics, and the opportunity cost of what could have been built with the right person in that seat.
Of course, there’s no such thing as perfect hiring. But there is such a thing as being prepared, being honest, and staying accountable when it matters. That’s what makes hiring high-leverage and why it can’t be rushed or winged.
Create space for mutual filtering
In my teams, we did this differently. Most hiring processes are one-way. Candidates perform. Companies evaluate.
This was something I introduced deliberately. Hiring should never be one-way.
We gave people access to context. We encouraged questions. We spent time showing them what we were really like, not just the polished pitch deck version of the company.
In interviews, we flipped the dynamic. Half of the time was allocated for them to ask us whatever they wanted. It created space for a more honest and revealing conversation.
It also led to better matches. More trust. Fewer surprises later.
Less volume, more clarity
If you’re having to interview more than 15 people for a single role, something upstream is broken. In past roles, we’d narrow hundreds of applicants down to a shortlist of 5 to 8. Sometimes fewer.
Why? Because the brief was tight. The spec was honest. The recruiters were trusted partners. And the process did the filtering before the interviews even began.
Treat recruiters like partners
One thing I’ve always done is treat recruiters as part of the team. Whether internal or external, they were part of the process from day one.
We invested time upfront in clear briefs, role clarity, context, and an efficient feedback loop. That saved us time later by reducing the need for chasing or course correction.
Recruiters can only work with what you give them. If your prep is poor, your process vague, or your communication inconsistent, even the strongest partners will look average. That’s on you, not them.
Recruitment isn’t just about evaluating people. It’s about building a system that helps the right people find their way to you, and feel confident saying yes because they know exactly what they’re walking into.
Team building starts here
Good hiring comes down to seeing potential, understanding the environment you’re hiring into, and staying clear on what matters most.
Hiring shapes who you become as a team. Not just who joins, but how the team grows around them.
Each person you hire is like an ingredient. They bring flavour, texture, and colour to the mix. Get the balance right, and the team becomes more than the sum of its parts.
That’s where culture builds, innovation kicks in, and scale becomes sustainable.
Great teams aren’t built by accident. They’re built through intention, through knowing what you’re creating, and through hiring people who can take you there.
It’s what unlocks sustainable growth. It’s how strong teams stay strong.
This is just the start
This piece only scratches the surface. There’s more to come, from process design and interview systems to the tools, questions, and techniques that help you hire not just for now, but for what’s next.
I’ll be sharing more over on LinkedIn — follow along if you want to catch it when it drops.
