It’s no secret that hiring is tough. What most people don’t realize is that they’re often making it harder than it needs to be.
Here’s a story we hear often.
You post a job, get a flood of applicants that don’t fit, finally find a few solid people, and then somehow still end up back at square one. That’s because either the right candidates drop out, the wrong ones get hired, or the role stays open longer than it should, and your team starts feeling it.
So naturally, you try to fix it. You add more ad dollars. You increase pay without really knowing what the market demands. You wait for more candidates so you can compare and make sure you’re picking the best one.
But here’s the problem. A lot of what feels logical in hiring isn’t actually helping you. It’s slowing you down, creating more frustration, and costing you more money.
Over time, these assumptions disguise themselves as truth, but they’re not. There are common hiring myths that a lot of teams mistakenly operate on. And if you don’t catch them, they can work against you.
Below are 5 myths we come across often, and how to think about them differently so you can finally start attracting and hiring the right people.
Hiring Myth #1: More applicants = better odds
If we can just get more people to apply we’ll have a better shot at finding a hire. Right?
But here’s the catch. If you increase volume without fixing the fundamentals, you don’t get better results. You just get more of the same.
And to be clear, hiring is often a numbers game. In some cases, you do need more applicants. We actually encourage that. But only after the foundation is right, because it’s more about quality over quantity.
If your job description isn’t attracting the right candidates, your process is unclear or inconsistent, or your team isn’t set up to move quickly and evaluate candidates properly, adding more volume doesn’t fix anything. It just amplifies the problem.
Instead of reviewing a manageable group, you’re going to dig through more applications that doesn’t move you any closer to a great hire. You get more noise, not better applicants. It spreads your attention thin, slows down your team, and makes it harder to actually identify the right people when they do apply.
And here’s something else that doesn’t always sink in right away. Your best candidates are evaluating you just as much as you’re evaluating them. If things feel slow, messy, or inconsistent because your team is trying to keep up, they notice. And a poor experience is one of the most common ways to lose someone you really wanted to hire. In fact, Forbes shares that 42% of candidates have declined a job offer due to a bad interview experience. That’s a lot of missed hires that could have been avoided!
Hiring isn’t about how many people you can bring in. It’s about whether the right people are showing up and whether your process is set up to recognize them and move quickly when they do.
Hiring Myth #2: We just need to pay more
Compensation matters – it absolutely does. But salary is not a cure-all, and treating it like one usually creates new problems.
Candidates aren’t just choosing based on pay. They’re looking at the full picture: job stability, work-life balance, benefits, schedule, commute, growth opportunities, work environment/culture, and flexibility, including opportunities to work from home.
And we’re seeing this backed up in the data. Deloitte’s 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey found that specifically financial security, meaning (a sense of purpose), and mental well-being are all tightly connected when it comes to accepting a job. Money matters, but it cannot stand on its own.
So if those areas are unclear or not competitive, increasing pay often doesn’t solve the problem on its own. It just puts a higher price tag on the same underlying issues.
And if you rely too heavily on compensation, you put yourself in a tough position. Now you’re likely overpaying, creating internal equity issues, or competing in a cycle where the next company can always offer a little more and pull that person away, especially if your role isn’t competitive in other ways.
The point is simple: pay matters, but it’s one piece of the decision, not the full decision.
Hiring Myth #3: There aren’t good people out there
“It’s just the market right now” or “we just aren’t seeing any good applicants”.
And to be fair, some roles are absolutely harder to fill, and some industries and roles have a smaller talent pool than others.
But most of the time, the issue isn’t that good people don’t exist. It’s that they’re not applying to your position, or they’re getting filtered out before you ever have a real conversation.
They may not be applying because your role is not attractive enough to win them over. Pay attention to what candidates are telling you during interviews. Do you need better benefits, more time off, or is every other competitor offering work-from-home opportunities and you’re not? Add to your interview questions list, “Is there anything else you’re looking for in this role that would make it more appealing?” Not that you have to fulfill the request, but to simply collect the data. Then try to meet it. And if you can’t, that’s okay, and try to look for other ways to compete.
Also, many companies find they can’t compete in salary, and if that’s the case, consider adjusting the role or expectations so it aligns with your budget.
The second big thing we see is that they never get the opportunity to meet great candidates, often because roles are defined too narrowly. Too much emphasis is placed on exact experience, the same job titles, coming from a competitor background, and the like. It overlooks good candidates with potential and transferable skills that often matter more than titles alone.
When you narrow your criteria too much, you shrink your pool and then conclude there aren’t any good options when in reality, you may just be looking for the wrong signals.
Our suggestion: ensure your role is truly competitive, and if it is, make sure you’re weighing the right qualifications that actually determine future success and performance, not just “perfect” paper fits that may be out of reach.
Hiring Myth #4: Our job description is fine
Many times, job descriptions are treated as low-level tasks that haven’t been updated since they were first written, or get rushed so some candidates can finally start coming in (or nowadays, something you have AI quickly write for you).
The biggest problem is that job descriptions are extremely important. They are the blueprint for success in the role. Architects spend more than 5 minutes designing a house, and the same should be true here.
The second problem is most job descriptions weren’t written to attract candidates. They were written to document a role internally. Job descriptions are in fact a marketing tool. So don’t just list responsibilities and requirements like a checklist.
Instead, write them with this question in mind: “Would I want to apply for this role?” Is the culture clearly displayed, are the benefits clear, is there an “about” section, and is there a clear purpose behind why this role matters?
Does it read like something engaging, or something you’d skim and move past?
Also for job descriptions 101, make sure to include basics like the pay, full benefits, perks/rewards, schedule, work location, growth opportunities, and day-to-day of the role.
If candidates can’t quickly answer those questions, they either don’t apply or they apply without a clear understanding, which helps explain why candidates may be lackluster or confused during your interview process.
A simple way to pressure test this is to look at your interview process. If candidates are consistently asking the same basic questions, your job description isn’t clear enough.
Remember that your job post isn’t just an internal document. It’s your marketing tool and first impression with a potential hire. It should help the right people opt in, and the wrong people opt out.
Hiring Myth #5: We need to find the perfect candidate
Some clients we’ve worked with don’t say this directly, but you can see it in how they hire.
They needed to hire “yesterday”, yet when a candidate comes in that checks the most important boxes, hiring managers find something smaller the candidate is missing or want to “wait to see more candidates” just to be sure.
They compare candidates to each other instead of measuring them against what the role actually requires, which is a trap.
Your best candidate may very well be the first person you meet. It happens all the time. But if you’re always waiting for something better, you end up passing on people who could have done the job well or have taken another role in the waiting.
Also, please let me be blunt with you. You are unlikely to find perfection. Unless you are Google or NVIDIA, you likely won’t get Harvard grad applicants. So please help yourself by setting realistic expectations.
Compromise on the hard skills where you can (number of years of experience, etc.), but don’t on the soft skills that truly matter long-term (accountability, reliability, ability to learn, team player, etc.).
Because when you know exactly what you need, it becomes much easier to recognize it when you see it.
What Actually Works Instead
If you step back, all of these myths point to the same issue.
Hiring problems usually aren’t caused by a lack of effort. They come from a lack of structure.
What actually works is having a clear, repeatable process that you’ve put real thought into. One that defines what success looks like in the role, attracts the right candidates, evaluates them consistently, and moves quickly when the right person shows up.
That means:
- Writing job descriptions that actually sell the opportunity, not just document it
- Knowing what you’re really looking for before you start interviewing
- Evaluating candidates against a defined scorecard, not against each other
- Creating a process that is consistent, timely, and respectful of the candidate experience
- Making decisions based on what drives success in the role, not gut feel or “perfect” resumes
When those pieces are in place, everything else starts to work better. You’ll naturally see how your application volume and quality improves, and you make quicker and better hires.
Don’t Believe the Myths
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