2025: The Year Companies Forgot How to Hire

The most thorough hiring processes are producing the worst outcomes. This is not a hypothesis. This is what I am seeing in every second project this year.

Companies are spending more time searching for executives than ever before. Reviewing more candidates, conducting more interview rounds, involving more stakeholders in decisions. Processes that used to take two to three months now stretch to five or six. Where ten candidates once sufficed, twenty is now common. A twofold increase in both timelines and candidate volume. I have never seen anything like it.

Logic suggests that more rigorous selection should yield better results. In practice, the opposite is happening. Candidates who survive the toughest filters are more likely to disappoint. Not because they are weak. They passed through a sieve that eliminated nineteen other professionals. But by the time they start, expectations have inflated to a level no real person can meet.

This is a systemic failure with identifiable causes. The conclusions I am sharing here are based on data from my own projects over the past year.

The First Cause: Hunting a Phantom

Here is what happens inside a client's mind during a prolonged search.

The first candidate impresses with deep industry expertise but seems to lack charisma. The second interviews brilliantly but has a questionable track record. The third has ideal experience but the chemistry feels off. The fourth excels at strategy but appears weak on operations.

Each rejection is rational in isolation. But a parallel process is underway. The client's brain unconsciously assembles an ideal candidate from the best qualities of everyone rejected. The expertise of the first, the charisma of the second, the experience of the third, the strategic thinking of the fourth.

This Frankenstein becomes the benchmark. Every subsequent real candidate is compared not to the job requirements but to this phantom. And loses, because no living person can combine the best qualities of twenty different professionals.

The longer the search, the more perfect the phantom becomes. And the more unattainable the outcome.

If even one parameter of the ideal profile cannot be quickly confirmed, the client prefers to continue searching. No compromises. No faith in onboarding and development. No belief that someone can grow into the role.

The prevailing market narrative amplifies this dynamic. The perception of an endless supply of potential candidates creates the illusion that the perfect one exists somewhere. You just need to keep looking. The employer's market has bred a culture of pickiness where companies would rather hire no one at all than accept any imperfection.

2025 became the year of categorical rejections.

The Second Cause: Fear of Failure Disguised as Diligence

Recent years have conditioned business leaders to expect that any forecast can collapse within a month. In an environment of constant uncertainty, hiring a senior executive feels like a bet with an unpredictable outcome.

Fear of failure manifests differently depending on who is making the decision.

Business owners typically decide faster. They are risking their own money and understand that perfect choices do not exist. A prolonged search means lost time and missed opportunities. They are prepared to accept reasonable risk.

Hired CEOs and management teams behave differently. For them, a failed hire is a reputational blow. They search for a candidate who will eliminate the anxiety of uncertainty. No such person exists, but the search continues. Each new candidate represents another attempt to find an absolutely safe choice.

At the corporate level, a lengthy process becomes protection against accountability. If the hire does not work out, there is always a defense: we conducted a thorough search, reviewed twenty-five candidates, held four rounds of interviews. We did everything right. The candidate failed us.

The process stops being a tool for finding the best solution. It becomes insurance against blame.

The Third Cause: Emotional Debt

After five months of searching, the person who finally receives an offer carries the weight of all the invested effort.

So much time spent. So many candidates rejected. So many discussions held. This person must justify all of it. They must be the best, otherwise why wait so long.

By the time they start, expectations have reached a level impossible for any human being to meet. They must not merely do the job. They must prove that every rejection was correct. That the wait was worthwhile.

The first months are evaluated through this lens. A normal adaptation period is perceived as a warning sign. Standard challenges of stepping into a new role are interpreted as evidence that the choice was wrong.

A good professional is branded as a disappointment. Their only fault is being human rather than a phantom assembled from other people's fantasies.

This year, I have had more replacement searches than ever before. People are let go before the end of their probation period, before they have had a chance to deliver results.

What I Now Do Differently

Having identified these causes, I have changed how I work with clients.

At the start of every project, I conduct what I call a phantom inoculation. I ask the client to describe the best executive they have ever worked with. Not an ideal one. A real one. Then I ask: what were that person's weaknesses? There are always weaknesses. This conversation serves as a reminder that outstanding leaders are never perfect. They excel in specific areas and have their limitations.

I establish criteria before the search begins and return to them with every rejection. Not "why is this candidate worse than the previous ones" but "does this candidate meet the criteria we agreed on at the start." This anchor prevents the bar from drifting upward.

I introduce constraints on time and quantity. We agree in advance: we review fifteen candidates, then we decide. If none of the fifteen is suitable, we do not continue the search. We stop and honestly reassess either the requirements, the conditions, or the entire problem statement.

When the client is ready to make an offer, I have another conversation. I remind them that the first six months are an adaptation period, not a performance evaluation. That the new hire will make mistakes. That the choice was right even if the early months are imperfect.

The Root of the Problem

Behind all three causes lies one fundamental issue. The attempt to eliminate uncertainty where it cannot be eliminated.

Hiring a senior executive is always a risk. No process guarantees success. No number of interviews provides absolute certainty. A person can excel through every stage of selection and still fail to fit the company culture. Or encounter circumstances no one anticipated.

A prolonged search creates an illusion of control. The more candidates reviewed, the more confident the choice appears. But this is false confidence. It does not reduce actual risk. It only raises expectations and increases the probability of disappointment.

The best hiring decisions I have witnessed in twenty-five years were not made after the longest searches. They were made when the client clearly understood what problem needed solving, what kind of person was needed, and had the courage to choose without claiming absolute certainty.

The perfect candidate does not exist. But search long enough, and you can convince yourself that the next one will be.

This is a trap. And in 2025, more companies fell into it than ever before.