August 24, 2026

A Flashy Chair With a Hiring Lesson

Last week I read TechRadar's review of the Razer Soma Chroma and had a little chuckle. Not because I spend my evenings ranking illuminated gaming chairs like a deranged interior designer, but because it felt weirdly familiar.

Here was a product with a loud name, a flashy gimmick, a premium price tag, and one genuinely excellent core feature. According to TechRadar, it is seriously comfortable. Great. Lovely. Top marks for actually being a chair. But the bells and whistles feel undercooked, and the lighting needs you to bring your own battery pack to make the whole party work. At that point, it stops feeling futuristic and starts feeling like admin with LEDs.

Source: TechRadar, 'The Razer Soma Chroma has a silly name, silly price tag, and sillily requires you bring your own battery to light the thing up'.

And honestly, that is not just a product story. It is a hiring story.

I see this all the time, especially in tech, data, infrastructure and cyber hiring. Companies pay premium prices for what looks impressive on paper, then act surprised when the practical bits are clunky, incomplete, or oddly dependent on something they forgot to include.

Shiny is not the same as useful. Expensive is not the same as right. And if your hiring process needs half the candidate's goodwill to power it, the lights will go out pretty quickly.

When style outruns substance

The Soma Chroma seems to have been designed with a very modern instinct. Make it stand out. Make it glow. Make it look like it belongs in a billionaire gamer's lair.

Nothing wrong with that. The world does not need to be beige.

But there is a fine line between differentiation and distraction. In hiring, lots of businesses cross it without noticing.

They obsess over external polish:

• fancy employer branding
• careers pages full of stock-photo joy
• job adverts that read like Marvel origin stories
• interview processes dressed up as 'rigorous'

Meanwhile the fundamentals are wobbling:

• unclear role scope
• confused stakeholders
• compensation that does not match the market
• decision-making slower than a Monday morning VPN

That is the recruitment version of RGB lighting with no battery included. Looks exciting in the pitch. Less exciting when someone tries to use it.

Comfort wins. The rest needs to keep up

One thing jumped out from the review. The chair is genuinely comfortable. That matters. In fact, it matters more than the gimmicks.

That is a useful reminder for hiring leaders. Candidates will forgive a lot if the core proposition is strong. If the role is meaningful, the leadership credible, the package fair, and the team setup sensible, people lean in.

But if the extras are doing all the heavy lifting, you have a problem.

I have seen firms try to sell roles on peripheral perks while the main event is underwhelming.

You know the classics:

• 'We move fast' usually means 'we are making it up on the fly'
• 'Huge opportunity for impact' usually means 'there is no structure'
• 'Hybrid flexibility' turns out to mean 'please live in the office and smile about it'
• 'Competitive salary' turns out to be competitive with 2021

Perks are seasoning. They are not the meal.

If your fundamentals are great, talk about them clearly. If they are not, no amount of neon language will save you.

The premium trap

The part that really interests me is the price tag. A premium product invites premium scrutiny. Fair enough.

Same with hiring.

If you want top-tier talent, you are not just competing on salary. You are competing on seriousness. Strong candidates judge the whole machine:

• How crisp is the brief?
• How aligned are the interviewers?
• How quickly do you respond?
• Does the role sound like it has been thought through by adults?
• Can anyone explain what success looks like in the first 12 months?

When businesses get this wrong, they often blame the market. They say candidates are picky, flaky, expensive, impossible.

Sometimes that is true.

Often, though, the issue is simpler. You are charging premium expectations to the candidate while offering a process held together with crossed fingers and a Notion doc.

Elite candidates do not mind high bars. They mind sloppy ones.

Bring your own battery is not a strategy

This is my favourite part of the review because it is so gloriously avoidable. The product's headline feature needs extra effort from the buyer to function properly.

Again, painfully familiar.

Too many hiring processes rely on the candidate to compensate for what the company has not sorted internally. Candidates are expected to:

• decode vague job specs
• stay engaged through long silences
• repeat themselves across five interviews
• guess who the decision-maker really is
• remain enthusiastic while timelines slip into another postcode

That is not candidate commitment. That is candidate labour.

And the best people will not subsidise your dysfunction for long.

If your process only works when candidates do the emotional and organisational heavy lifting, it is broken.

Here is the blunt truth. Good candidates are not battery packs. They are not there to power your messy process out of generosity.

The Chair Test for hiring

Here is a simple framework I like for sanity-checking a hiring strategy. Let us call it the Chair Test, because why not.

Core function

What is the one thing this role absolutely must deliver?

If you cannot explain the role simply, you probably should not be hiring it yet.

Daily experience

Will the person actually enjoy doing this job in your environment?

Job specs often sell the destination and ignore the commute.

Value versus price

Are you paying appropriately for what you need, and offering enough in return?

Do not ask for a Formula 1 driver if you are offering bus fare and a fruit bowl.

Hidden dependencies

What extra effort is required from the candidate to make this role work?

If success depends on them fixing your stakeholder alignment, process maturity, or leadership ambiguity, say a prayer and revisit the brief.

Signal versus substance

Are you investing in what matters, or just what looks good?

Brand matters. So does recruitment theatre. But neither should be doing CPR on a weak proposition.

Questions worth asking internally

If you are hiring right now, nick these for your next internal meeting:

• What is genuinely compelling about this role besides the logo and the mission slide?
• Would a top candidate understand the job after reading the advert once?
• Where in our process are we asking candidates to carry unnecessary friction?
• Are we evaluating talent properly, or just creating obstacle courses?
• What would make a strong candidate quietly withdraw after interview two?

If those questions make people squirm a little, good. That usually means there is truth nearby.

What smart hiring leaders should do now

If this all sounds uncomfortably familiar, there are fixes. None of them require RGB lighting.

Tighten the brief before launch

Get ruthless about scope, outcomes, and non-negotiables. A vague brief creates vague hiring and expensive disappointment.

Audit your process like a candidate

Walk through every stage and ask, 'Is this useful, or is this just tradition wearing a lanyard?'

Sell the fundamentals

Talk clearly about leadership, problem scope, team quality, progression, and impact. That is what serious candidates care about.

Remove hidden admin

Do not make candidates chase updates, decode mixed messages, or perform enthusiasm through avoidable delays.

Match ambition with infrastructure

If you want exceptional people, build a process that feels like it was designed by a serious business, not improvised between calendar invites.

Conclusion

The Razer Soma Chroma sounds like a chair with one excellent truth wrapped in a lot of questionable packaging. Comfortable, flashy, and somehow incomplete at the exact moment it should be showing off. Source: TechRadar.

That is not a product problem alone. It is a hiring problem in miniature.

The companies that win talent are rarely the loudest. They are the clearest. They know what matters, they invest in the basics, and they do not ask candidates to bring their own battery pack just to experience the role properly.

Because in hiring, as in chairs, if the fundamentals are strong, people will sit up and pay attention.

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