Most bad hires are decided in one meeting, months before anyone reads a CV. Thirty minutes of vague agreement produces a search with no target, and every later step inherits the problem.
What usually goes wrong
The normal version goes like this. The hiring manager describes a person. You write down adjectives. Everyone leaves happy.
Two weeks later they reject four candidates who match that description, for reasons nobody mentioned in the meeting.
Nobody was being difficult. Managers describe a person because that is how people think about jobs. But a description of a person is a summary. The reasoning behind it has already been thrown away. Your job in this meeting is to get the reasoning back.
The twelve questions
Four groups. Twenty-five to thirty minutes if you keep things moving.
The problem
- What will this person have done in six months that nobody is doing today?
- Of those things, which matters most in the first three months?
- What happens if we do not fill this for another three months?
The bar
- Who is the best person you have seen do this job? What made them good?
- Who was the last person hired into a job like this who did not work out? What went wrong?
- Which parts of this job can someone learn here, and which do they have to arrive with?
The market
- Where do people who can do this work now?
- What are they earning there?
- Why would someone leave that to come here?
The process
- Who else has to say yes, and what is each of them judging?
- How fast could we move if everyone agreed on someone?
- Of everything you have told me, what would you give up to fill this in three weeks?
The three that do the most work
Question 5 — the hire that did not work out. This one beats every other question in the list. Managers describe their ideal candidate in general terms and their failed hire in detail. The detail is what you can actually screen on.
Question 6 — learn here or arrive with. This gives you your must-haves. Anything someone can learn in the job is not a requirement. Most requirement lists fail this test on half their items.
Question 12 — the trade. People skip this one because it feels confrontational. Ask it anyway. A manager who will not trade anything has not given you requirements. They have given you a wish, and you will be back in this meeting in six weeks.
The requirement nobody mentions
Almost every job has one requirement the manager has not said out loud. Usually because it feels obvious to them, or slightly awkward to say.
Someone who can handle a difficult colleague. Someone who does not need managing. Someone who can start before the quarter ends.
You find it by asking a what-if: "Suppose I bring you someone who meets everything we have discussed, but they need close direction for the first six months. Still a yes?"
The answer is often no. You have just found a requirement that would otherwise have shown up as an unexplained rejection two months from now.
Write it down so the rest of the process can use it
Notes in a document are not much use. What you need is a record with fields, because the next lesson turns it into a job profile, Lesson 4 turns that into a scorecard, and Module 4 turns the scorecard into screening rules.
| Write down | Used later for |
|---|---|
| What success looks like in six months | The job advert and the scorecard |
| Must arrive with it / can learn it here | Your filters and your scores |
| What went wrong with the last hire | Screening rules and interview questions |
| Where these people work now | Your search plan in Module 3 |
| Salary range | The advert, your outreach, the offer |
| Who decides, and what each judges | Designing the interviews in Module 7 |
| What they agreed to trade | Your authority when the pool turns out to be thin |
Download the twelve questions · all templates
The one-sentence test
Before you leave, say the job back in one sentence: "You need someone who can do X, who arrives already able to Y, and we will trade Z to get them quickly."
If the manager hesitates, you are not finished. Do not leave with a hesitation. It becomes a rejected shortlist later.