Many entrepreneurs are afraid of hiring because they have already been burned. Or they have seen how one mistake in recruitment led to the destruction of teams, reputational risks, losses. This fear is not uncommon, but a reality for small and medium businesses.
A manager often falls into a trap: he spends too much time looking for the ideal candidate, fearing to encounter irresponsibility, toxicity or simply lack of initiative again. This leads to procrastination in decision-making, overloading current employees and, as a result, turnover, because the team gets tired of waiting for “the one”.
In one manufacturing company that I consult, the manager changes assistants every six months. Not because they don’t know how to work, but because he doesn’t trust them from the start. Interviews turn into interrogations with the expectation of a catch. And if he does hire someone, he fires them after six months, convincing himself that he was right to be afraid, because the employee turned out to be less than ideal.
The fear of not finding the “right” employee eliminates the opportunity to see a person’s strengths.
In 2024-2025, the problem has worsened due to a personnel shortage. In almost every second business — especially in manufacturing, logistics, construction, catering, and healthcare — the shortage of qualified employees has become the main headache for managers.
Competition for valuable specialists is high, and poaching has become the norm. At the same time, a significant portion of young applicants choose flexible work formats, are not always ready for a stable workload, and the level of soft skills of some candidates leaves much to be desired.
Now, values, management style, atmosphere, and trust are important. Entrepreneurs often come to me with the same question: “Why do I give a good salary, but people don’t stay?” The answer is not only in the numbers. An employee can leave due to micromanagement, ambiguous feedback, or “cold” onboarding.
Amid the personnel shortage, the fear of making a mistake in hiring only intensifies. At this point, it is important to build a systematic approach, rather than follow the path of emotional hiring “at random.”