January 22, 2026

Hiring Delays Are Your Real Villains

Where’s the Trailer, William?

Amazon just dropped the first look at Grand Regent Thragg and Universa for Invincible Season 4 — the villains are here, but no release date in sight. Tantalising, yeah. But also a bit of a tease. And if that feeling sounds familiar, it’s because it’s exactly how hiring feels for a lot of tech companies right now.

Flashy announcements go out — "We’re hiring a head of data!" or "We’ve got a new role in cloud engineering!" — but then… silence. No deadline. No roadmap. No strategy. Just vibes and LinkedIn posts.

Let me be blunt: if your hiring process doesn’t have a timeline, you’ve already lost. Because uncertainty is the real villain. And startups and scaleups? You don’t have the luxury of letting your own version of Thragg slow things down.

The Hidden Cost of No Timeframe

Not setting a clear hiring deadline is like launching a new product feature without a release plan. Doesn’t matter how shiny it is — if the user's waiting six months to see it, they’ve already moved on.

Every open role with no timeline creates compound problems:

• Team morale drops because workloads grow.
• Candidates lose interest — or get snapped up by your competitors.
• Your hiring ‘funnel’ becomes a spaghetti mess without milestones.
• The business loses momentum. Or worse — falls behind.

It’s not just about speed — it’s about accountability. No timeline? No urgency. No urgency? No hire.

The Big Villains In Your Hiring Process

In Invincible, Thragg is a straight-up powerhouse. But in your hiring process, the villains are subtler — and sneakier.

Here are the usual suspects slowing things down:

• Perfection Paralysis— waiting for the ‘perfect’ candidate when a brilliant one is already in front of you.
• Unclear Ownership— who actually owns the hire? Founder? CTO? People team? If that’s murky, expect delays.
• Endless Interviews— dragging people through six rounds like it’s The X Factor. Nobody wins that way.
• Scope Creep— the role evolves mid-search. Suddenly a Data Analyst also needs to be a Cloud Architect and part-time shaman.

And then there’s The Phantom Kickoff — when a role is “live” but hasn’t been properly scoped, benchmarked, or budgeted. That’s like putting Universa on your poster without finishing the script.

The One Framework I Wish More Startups Used

Here's a deceptively simple framework I use with scaling clients looking to avoid hiring limbo:

The 5Ds of Hiring Discipline

• Define the role properly. Be brutal about what’s truly essential versus 'nice to have'.
• Decide who owns the hire — and empower them to move fast.
• Deadline everything. Kickoff date, first CVs, interviews, offer. No deadline = no velocity.
• Disqualify the wrong fits quickly. Time is talent.
• Deploy with confidence. Once you find the one — GO. No dragging your feet.

If this feels overly structured for your startup — good. Structure is your friend. That’s how you beat the villains.

Questions Worth Asking (Before You Post Another Job)

If you’re about to launch a role — or already have one dragging on longer than Mark Grayson’s recovery arc — here are five blunt questions worth asking your team:

• Do we actually know what this person will be doing in 6 months?
• What’s our target start date — and what happens if we miss it?
• Who’s responsible for moving the process forward every week?
• Can we clearly articulate why someone should join us over a Google, a Monzo, or a TIER 1 scaleup?
• Do we have one single kill-switch — if this role stalls, who pulls the plug and resets?

Honestly? If you can’t answer those, you’re not ready to be hiring — you’re just broadcasting.

Conclusion: Great Talent Moves Fast. So Should You.

I get it — hiring is a high-stakes, high-anxiety game. Especially in early or nimble-stage companies where the wrong hire can stall trajectories. But doing nothing — or dragging things out — is quieter, costlier failure.

Don’t be like Prime Video’s tease: Here’s a villain! Maybe you'll see him… someday!

Set tight timelines. Mobilise your team. Kill villains like ambiguity, paralysis, and ego. And if you’re not sure how to get started right — you already know someone who’s got the superhero agency phone line:

Ring me. I help scaling tech companies hire top-tier Cloud, Data, BI and Cyber folk fast — with less drama and more delivery.

Because it’s not about showing off the villain you’ll fight. It’s about being ready to fight them now.

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