October 5, 2026
Last-minute deals are brilliant for headphones, coffee machines and the kind of vacuum you convince yourself will change your life. TechRadar's roundup of Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days leans hard into that urgency playbook: record-low prices, expert-approved offers, ends tonight, do not miss out. Fair enough. It works for commerce. Source: TechRadar, 'Hurry, Amazon Prime Big Deal Days ends tonight — last chance to check out these 100+ expert-approved offers on headphones, air fryers, vacuums & more', https://www.techradar.com/live/news/amazon-au-prime-big-deal-days-2026-last-chance
But here is the problem. Too many leadership teams bring that same energy into hiring.
'We need someone yesterday.'
'Just get me the best available.'
'We can tidy the brief up later.'
That, to be blunt, is how good companies make expensive hiring mistakes.
I have seen smart founders, seasoned CTOs and perfectly sensible people leaders turn into Black Friday shoppers the moment a critical role opens up. Suddenly everything is urgent, everyone is reactive, and the hiring process becomes a trolley dash with budget approval.
Hiring is not shopping. And urgency, while sometimes necessary, is a terrible strategy when it becomes the default operating model.
Let me be fair. Some roles are genuinely urgent.
A security lead leaves mid-incident. A cloud migration is wobbling. A Head of Data exits just as the board starts asking sharper questions. Stuff happens. Businesses are messy. Timing is rarely polite.
So I am not anti-speed. I recruit in markets where speed matters. If you move like a committee trying to order lunch, the best people are gone.
But there is a huge difference between moving quickly and moving blindly.
Urgency says: we know what matters, so let us execute crisply.
Panic says: we are stressed, so let us lower our standards and hope charisma does the rest.
One gets you momentum. The other gets you a six-figure problem with a laptop.
Retail urgency works because the product is clear. You know what an air fryer does. The spec is on the box. The reviews are public. If it disappoints, your Sunday roast suffers.
Hiring is the opposite.
The job spec is usually fuzzy. The team's actual needs are often buried under politics, wish lists or wishful thinking. Candidates can all look excellent on paper. And when the hire is wrong, it is not just inconvenient. It ripples.
A bad hire can mean:
That is why hiring on urgency alone is so dangerous. You start overvaluing availability, confidence and a polished interview style. The candidate who can start next Tuesday suddenly looks more attractive than the one who is actually right.
That is not recruitment. That is stress shopping.
Here is the bit nobody loves admitting.
Most companies do not have a hiring process. They have a sequence of habits.
When pressure hits, those habits get exposed fast.
You see things like:
Under pressure, these flaws get worse because people stop thinking clearly. The process becomes less about outcomes and more about relief. The goal shifts from hiring well to ending the pain.
That is exactly when mistakes happen.
The answer is not to drag everything out for twelve weeks and call it diligence. Nobody has time for that. The answer is to compress the right things and expand the right things.
Here is the framework I push clients towards.
Before you speak to a single candidate, answer three questions:
If you cannot answer those cleanly, you are not ready to hire. You are just ready to advertise your confusion.
Too many briefs are written like museum labels. A list of technologies. Years of experience. Nice-to-haves breeding with other nice-to-haves.
Better question: what would make you say, six months from now, 'Thank God we hired them'?
Write that down. It sharpens everything.
If it takes seven stages to decide whether someone can lead your infrastructure team, the problem is not the candidate pool.
For most senior hires, you need:
That is enough. Add more only if it improves signal, not because everyone wants a turn.
I like chemistry. Chemistry matters. But chemistry without evidence is how you end up hiring a brilliant talker who leaves your team quietly updating CVs.
Assess candidates against real outcomes:
Charm is lovely. Delivery is lovelier.
This is where leaders often fool themselves.
They obsess over the cost of leaving a role open, which is valid. But they underweight the cost of getting it wrong.
In tech, data, cyber and infrastructure roles especially, a weak hire does not just underperform. They create drag.
Drag on delivery. Drag on decision-making. Drag on your best people, who now have to compensate, coach, rework or endure.
And here is the kicker. Top performers hate carrying passengers. Keep doing that, and your retention problem introduces itself.
So yes, vacancies hurt. But poor hiring compounds.
If you remember one line from this piece, make it this:
An empty seat is a problem. The wrong person in it is a multiplier.
If you are about to launch a search at speed, run this mini stress test internally first:
If the answers are woolly, do not blame the market when the search drifts.
There is too much lazy thinking in hiring.
Companies say they want exceptional people, then run muddled, bloated, panic-fuelled processes and act surprised when the outcome is average. You cannot build high-performing teams through vague briefs and adrenaline.
The best hiring companies are not always the biggest or richest. They are the clearest. They know what they need. They sell the opportunity properly. They assess with intent. And they move.
That is the sweet spot.
Fast enough to win. Disciplined enough not to regret it.
Amazon gets to use countdown clocks because if you buy the wrong blender, life goes on. Hiring does not offer that luxury.
If your next role is critical, resist the urge to recruit like it is a flash sale. Slow the panic, sharpen the brief, tighten the process and make decisions like the hire will matter in twelve months, because it will.
Move quickly, yes. Just do not move like someone wrestling strangers for half-price headphones.
If you want help hiring without the chaos, you know where I am.