February 9, 2026

Hiring Myths That Refuse to Die

Hiring Myths That Refuse to Die

In 17th-century Poland, if someone looked a bit... off after dying, the locals didn’t take chances. They whacked off your head, popped a sickle across your throat, maybe smashed a stone into your jaw for good measure — vampire prevention 101.

Recently, forensic experts reconstructed the face of one such suspected vampire. Turns out? Pretty normal guy. Bit of a wonky jaw, yes. But hardly a blood-sucking monster.

And yet, superstition ruled. Because when fear is involved, logic dies first.

Which brings us neatly to... hiring.

We Still Mutilate the Wrong Things

I’ve worked with tech scale-ups, fintech founders, heritage institutions and green warriors. Vastly different missions — but they share one very human flaw: they cling to dead ideas in hiring like a villager clutching garlic cloves.

The result? They decapitate good candidates. Posthumously. (i.e., rejecting them after dragging them through a bureaucratic monster of a process). Or they raise the wrong ones from the dead (i.e., re-hiring bad patterns just because “that’s how we’ve always done it”).

Let’s break the curse. Here are a few hiring vampires I see sucking the life out of teams — and how to finally bury them.

“They don’t have industry experience”

Ah yes, the classic. “We need someone from another fintech/greentech/whatever-tech or it’ll never work.”

Which is like saying you won’t let a Michelin-trained chef cook at your Italian restaurant because they spent three years in a French kitchen.

Sure, domain familiarity helps with speed — but if you only recruit from your bubble, you build an echo chamber. Innovation dies. You get...bloodless mediocrity.

Instead, ask:

• Can they learn fast in ambiguity?
• Do they have transferable skills that map to real problems you’re solving?
• Will they challenge how you do things—in a good way?

“We want someone who ticks every box”

Translation: “We’d like a vampire-slashing unicorn, fluent in Python, with 10 years’ cloud infra, a dash of BI, a sprinkle of cyber, and the patience of a Buddhist monk.”

This Frankenstein spec not only delays hiring, it scares off top people. Especially women and underrepresented candidates, who statistically won’t apply unless they think they meet 100% of the criteria.

Solution: Prioritise your must-haves. Ruthlessly. Then hire for trajectory, not perfection.

“Culture fit” = clone wars

“We just didn’t vibe with them.” Or: “not quite one of us.”

Is this a vampire alarm or just bias dressed up as taste? If your culture fit ends up as code for “they look/sound/think like us”... congrats, you’re building the Stepford team.

Shift to ‘culture add’. Who brings something new that your team needs? Who’s going to push thinking, not preserve groupthink?

“Let’s just see a few more candidates...”

The Phantom Parade: a ghostly stream of CVs that never ends. Because maybe — just maybe — the perfect one is coming. Next Monday. Or the next one.

If your process takes longer to wrap than a Christopher Nolan plot twist, you’re losing A-players. They’re not waiting to be summoned a second time. They’ve vanished into better offers.

Instead, ask:

• Are we clear on what success looks like in this role?
• Have we prepared to move fast on strong candidates?
• Is perfection the enemy of progress here?

How to Kill These Myths (with a Wooden Stake of Evidence)

Good hiring in today’s market isn’t about ancient rituals or legacy thinking. It’s about clarity, velocity and bravery.

• Write job specs like they’re mission briefs. What’s the real mission, who thrives here, and what problems will they be solving in 6–12 months?
• Design interviews to test for how they think, not just what they’ve done.
• Talk to candidates like they’re already on the team. Get real with them. They’ll respect it — and remember you.
• Use data to challenge assumptions. Keep track of who succeeds in the role long-term. Spoiler: it’s not always the glossy CV from the ‘right’ company.

The Real Monster? Indecisive Hiring

Just like medieval villagers worried about the undead, we let phantom fears guide hiring:

• Fear of making the wrong choice
• Fear of missing the mythical perfect hire
• Fear of shaking up a “safe” team

But here’s the real horror story: bad hires cost you productivity, team trust and time. Great people slipping through your fingers? That’s a leadership fail.

Your hiring process should reflect your ambition. If you’re building the company of the future, why use ideas from the past?

So look around. Are there any undead myths lurking in your hiring process? Time to put a stake through them — before they sprout fangs and haunt your team growth for another year.

No garlic needed.

Back to news