Hire right or complain forever

One of the most common complaints I hear from executives is this: “We can’t find good people.” The conversation usually continues with frustration about poor performance, lack of initiative, weak leadership, and the constant need for more training. Yet, when you look more closely, a more uncomfortable question emerges – are we hiring the right people in the first place? Jim Collins, in Good to Great, captured the essence of this challenge: “Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” Many organisations admire this idea, but far fewer apply it with discipline. The result is a familiar pattern – square pegs in round holes, struggling employees, frustrated managers, and organisations that spend years trying to fix, counsel and train people into roles they were never suited for.

At the heart of this problem is the issue of fit. Research on person-to-organisation fit shows that performance is not just about competence; it is about alignment between the individual, the role, the team, and the broader organisation. When this alignment is weak, even capable individuals underperform. This is why many performance problems are not capability issues but fit issues – the people are not necessarily bad; they are just the wrong fit! Organisations often respond by investing in training, hoping to close the gap, when the more fundamental problem lies in the initial hiring decision.

This brings us to the work of Bradford Smart and the Top Grading framework, which emphasises the importance of hiring “A Players” – individuals who consistently deliver superior performance. Smart argues that organisations should treat hiring as one of their most critical processes, applying the same rigour and discipline that they apply to financial decisions or strategic planning. This includes defining clear success criteria, conducting structured and in-depth interviews, validating candidates through thorough reference checks, and maintaining high hiring standards. The core idea is simple but powerful: the cost of a bad hire is far greater than the cost of a delayed hire.

However, identifying and hiring the right people requires more than intuition. It requires a structured, evidence-based approach. This is where competency-based recruitment becomes essential. Instead of relying on CVs, gut feel, or unstructured interviews, organisations must define the competencies required for success in a role and assess candidates against those competencies using consistent and objective methods.

Research strongly supports this approach. In Harvard Business Review, Xena Wang highlights the importance of structured interviews, where organisations define what they are looking for, ask consistent questions, and evaluate responses using clear criteria. Similarly, Joseph Fuller argues that many job interviews fail because they do not assess the skills that matter for performance. Unstructured interviews often reward confidence, charisma, or similarity to the interviewer, rather than true capability.

Insights from MIT Sloan Management Review reinforce this point. Ben Waber has shown that organisations that apply data-driven approaches to talent decisions by defining clear criteria, collecting evidence, and analysing outcomes are far more likely to make effective hiring decisions. When recruitment is treated as a system rather than a one-off activity, organisations improve both the quality and consistency of their hires.

The implications for practice are profound. First, organisations must define what success looks like before they begin the hiring process. This involves developing role scorecards that specify not just responsibilities, but outcomes and the competencies required to achieve them. Without this clarity, recruitment becomes a subjective exercise.

Second, organisations must assess both competence and fit. Fit should not be a vague concept or a proxy for similarity; it should be clearly defined in terms of values, behaviours, and ways of working that are relevant to the role and the organisation. This reduces bias and ensures that fit is evidence-based rather than intuitive.

Third, structured interviews and assessments must replace informal conversations. Candidates should be evaluated using consistent questions, scoring frameworks, and, where possible, simulations or case exercises that reflect real work scenarios. This improves the reliability and validity of hiring decisions.

Fourth, organisations must invest in thorough validation. Work history interviews, reference checks, and evidence of past performance provide critical insights into how candidates have behaved in real situations. Past behaviour remains one of the strongest predictors of future performance.

Finally, recruitment must be treated as a strategic system. Organisations should track the effectiveness of their hiring decisions over time, looking at performance outcomes, time to productivity, retention rates, and manager satisfaction. This creates a feedback loop that allows continuous improvement in hiring practices.

The connection to performance is direct and unavoidable. Organisations that hire poorly spend years complaining about performance, culture, and the need for more training. They attempt to solve structural problems with developmental interventions. Those that hire well, by contrast, find that many of these issues diminish significantly. Performance improves, culture strengthens, and training transforms into organisational learning.

Hiring is not an administrative task. It is one of the most consequential decisions an organisation makes. Get it right, and many problems never arise. Get it wrong, and you may spend years trying to fix what should have been avoided. In the end, the choice is simple. You can hire right or complain forever!

Omagbitse Barrow is the chief executive of Efiko Management Consulting, and he supports organisations and leaders to translate their strategy to results.