Why Your Hiring Process Is Failing (And How to Fix It)
You’ve agreed on the role. Everyone knows what you’re looking for. The job description is live, candidates are coming through, and interviews are underway.
Then, six weeks later, nobody has made it to the final round.
The hiring manager likes one candidate, the sales director thinks they’re too senior, and someone else isn’t convinced. So you arrange another interview. Maybe bring in another person. Perhaps wait a few more days before making a decision.
Before you know it, the role has been open for months.
The problem might not be your candidates. It might be your hiring process.
In a recent episode of On Record by Optimyze1, we discussed why hiring processes break down after the first interview, drawing on our experience working in recruitment and in-house talent teams. A recurring theme was that hiring problems often have less to do with the candidates themselves and more to do with how companies make decisions.
Here are five common reasons hiring processes get stuck — and what you can do about them.
1. Everyone thinks they're aligned. Until the interviews start.
One of the biggest mistakes companies make is assuming everyone agrees on what they're looking for before the hiring process begins.
The job description might be clear, but that doesn't mean everyone involved in hiring has the same candidate in mind. We saw this first-hand when hiring for destination manager roles across several markets at GetYourGuide.
The roles had the same requirements, but the hiring processes looked very different across New York, Spain and Italy.
New York was filling the role in around a month. In Spain and Italy, comparable roles had been open for nine months or longer.
When we looked more closely, the differences became clear: In Spain, candidates were given different destinations for their case study presentations. One might be asked how they would attract more visitors to Barcelona, while another would work on Madrid.
The hiring manager was also reviewing these case studies before candidates had the opportunity to present their work, creating delays in an already lengthy process.
In Italy, the issue was different. The people involved in the interviews didn't agree on the experience level required. The hiring manager might be happy with someone with three years of experience, while other interviewers wanted five.
Everyone was assessing candidates against a different idea of what the role required.
The result? Inconsistent decisions, delays and missed opportunities to hire.
How to fix it
Before you start interviewing, get everyone involved in hiring together and agree on three things:
What does this person actually need to do well? Focus on the capabilities required to succeed, rather than an endless list of nice-to-haves.
What does good look like? Agree on the experience, skills and evidence that would demonstrate someone can do the job.
How will you assess candidates consistently? If you're using a case study, make sure candidates are being assessed against the same criteria.
You don't need a complicated hiring framework. You need a shared understanding of what you're looking for.
2. Too many people have a vote, but nobody owns the decision
Getting input from different people can be valuable. After all, the person you're hiring might work closely with several teams.
The problem starts when everyone has an equal say in the final decision.
The founders love the candidate. The sales director thinks they're too senior. The hiring manager isn't convinced. Another interviewer thinks they lack energy.
Suddenly, you're debating opinions instead of assessing whether the candidate can do the job.
We've seen this happen in roles where candidates are rejected because different people have different expectations — expectations that were never agreed upon in the first place.
When everyone has a vote but nobody takes ownership, hiring becomes a negotiation.
And the longer you spend trying to get everyone to agree, the longer the role stays open.
How to fix it
Choose one person to own the hiring decision.
Usually, this should be the hiring manager — the person ultimately responsible for the role and its outcomes. Other interviewers should absolutely contribute their expertise and feedback. But they should have a clear reason for being involved, and their input should be relevant to the decision.
For example:
The hiring manager assesses overall suitability and role requirements.
A sales leader assesses sales capability and commercial judgement.
A customer success colleague assesses how the candidate works with customers and other teams.
Each person brings a different perspective. The hiring manager brings those perspectives together and makes the final call.
Not everyone needs to agree on every detail. What matters is that everyone understands what they're assessing and who is responsible for the decision.
3. "I liked them" isn't useful interview feedback
Imagine you've just interviewed a candidate. You leave the call and tell the team, "I liked them."
Great. But what does that actually tell anyone?
Did they demonstrate the skills required for the role? Did they give strong examples? Were there concerns about their experience? Did they answer a critical question well?
Without specifics, feedback becomes subjective. And subjective feedback is difficult to compare across candidates.
This becomes an even bigger problem when candidates go through several interviews with different people who don't know what's already been assessed.
In another example discussed on On Record, we looked at an RFP bid manager search where candidates went through six interviews, including a case study. Several people were involved, but interviewers didn't always have the context of previous conversations or a clear understanding of what they were expected to assess.
The process kept moving, but the team wasn't necessarily getting better information to make its decision.
More conversations don't automatically mean better decisions.
How to fix it
Take five minutes after every interview to record specific feedback.
Instead of writing "I liked them" or "I'm not sure", answer three questions:
1. Did they demonstrate the skills required for the role?
For a customer success role, for example, did they give evidence of retaining customers, expanding accounts or handling difficult customer situations?
2. What concerns do I have?
Be specific. Perhaps the candidate gave an example of dealing with an unhappy customer but couldn't explain what they did to resolve the issue. That's useful feedback. "Something felt off" isn't.
3. Should they move forward?
Choose one: yes, no, or not yet.
If it's "not yet", explain what information is missing and how you plan to get it. Don't leave a candidate in limbo because nobody wants to make the call.
Clear feedback helps the team make better decisions and gives you something useful to review when the process is complete.
4. More interviews don't necessarily mean better hires
It's easy to assume that if you're unsure about a candidate, another interview will give you the answer. Sometimes it will. But sometimes you're simply repeating conversations you've already had because nobody feels confident enough to decide.
We've seen hiring processes stretch to six interviews or more for roles that didn't necessarily require that level of scrutiny. Each additional conversation created another opportunity for someone to raise a new concern, often without adding much new information.
In our previous in-house recruiting experience, we've also seen how companies can use interview data to examine whether their process is actually helping them identify strong performers.
The important question isn't how many interviews you've conducted. It's whether each interview gives you meaningful evidence about the candidate's ability to succeed.
How to fix it
Start by asking what each stage of your process is designed to assess.
For many roles, a straightforward process might include:
An initial screen: Establish motivation, relevant experience and basic alignment with the role.
A skills or case study assessment: Test a capability that matters to the job, where appropriate.
Focused interviews: Assess the remaining key competencies, using consistent questions and criteria.
Some roles will need more steps than others. That's fine. But every additional stage should have a clear purpose.
Before adding another interview, ask yourself: What will we learn from this conversation that we don't already know?
If you can't answer that question, you probably don't need another stage.
5. Hiring without a deadline makes indecision easy
When a role has no clear target decision date, it's surprisingly easy for the process to drift.
There's always another candidate to meet. Another person who could share their opinion. Another concern to explore.
And because there's no agreed deadline, nobody feels the urgency to bring everything together and make a decision.
Meanwhile, the role stays open, the team continues operating without the person it needs, and the time spent interviewing adds up.
How to fix it
Set a target decision date before you start interviewing.
This doesn't mean rushing into a bad hire. It means agreeing on a realistic timeline and checking whether the process is on track.
For example, if you expect to make a decision within eight weeks, review progress halfway through.
If you're six weeks in and no candidates are progressing, ask why.
Are your requirements too restrictive?
Are interviewers assessing different things?
Is feedback taking too long?
Are you adding stages without getting better information?
Is the team avoiding a decision because nobody owns it?
A target date gives you a reason to review the process before the role becomes another long-running vacancy.
A simple hiring process is often a better hiring process
You don't need an elaborate talent acquisition function or expensive recruitment software to make improvements.
For founders and hiring managers in growing companies, start with these five actions:
Agree on three essential requirements before opening the role.
Choose one decision-maker who owns the final hiring decision.
Give every interviewer a clear purpose and define what they're assessing.
Capture specific feedback immediately after each conversation.
Set a target decision date and review progress along the way.
These are small changes, but they help you identify problems earlier, compare candidates more consistently and avoid unnecessary delays.
Most importantly, they shift the focus back to what matters: finding someone who can do the job.
Because when a role has been open for months, the answer isn't always to find more candidates or add another interview.
Sometimes, you need to fix the process that's getting in the way of making a decision.
Want to hear the full conversation?
This article is based on an episode of On Record by Optimyze1, where we discuss why hiring processes break down, how misalignment slows decisions, and what growing companies can do to make better hiring decisions.
Listen to the full episode here: On Record
Need help building a better hiring process?
At Optimyze1, we work with ambitious software companies to help them hire the right people across commercial and technical teams.
If you're struggling to fill a role or finding that your interview process isn't delivering the results you need, get in touch with Optimyze1.
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