Why Graduate Hiring Processes Fail

700 freshers waited 2 years after their offer letters, only to be terminated for failing assessments. I've been in recruitment for over a decade, but what's happening at Infosys right now hits differently. 700 young professionals. Dreams shattered. Not because they weren't good enough, but because our industry's hiring model is fundamentally broken. Think about this: These freshers waited 2 years after getting their offer letters. 2 years of their careers - on hold. Their families are proud of their Infosys selection, their future seemingly secure. Then reality struck. They were tested. They struggled. They failed. But who really failed here? The same industry that makes freshers wait years to join, expects their skills to remain sharp. The same companies that pride themselves on training, expect freshers to clear assessments with minimal preparation. The same sector that talks about talent development, terminates careers before they begin. This isn't just Infosys's story. This is where our entire hiring ecosystem has landed: - We've created a system where offers don't mean security.  - Where waiting periods destroy skill relevance.  - Where young talent bears the cost of our inefficient processes. The solution isn't complex - it's just uncomfortable: - We need to stop mass hiring without clear joining timelines.  - We need to invest in pre-joining skill development.  - We need to remember these are careers we're shaping, not just resources we're processing. Every time we make a fresher wait endlessly for an opportunity, we're not just risking their skills - we're playing with their trust in our industry. It's time we fixed this. Not tomorrow. Not next quarter. Now. #InfosysLayoffs #ITRecruitment  #FresherJobs

Three hires for the same role. Each one looked right. None of them delivered. That's not bad luck. That's a broken assessment process. I see this constantly. Each candidate presented with confidence. Genuinely good people who aligned to the values of the business. Looked right on paper. And still couldn't move the needle. Getting under the skin of why isn't straightforward. But the pattern is almost always the same. The assessment was measuring the wrong things. Competence got confused with capability. Confidence got mistaken for clarity. Cultural alignment got prioritised over commercial impact. What never got tested was whether the person could actually take control. Translate a vision into language that landed with their specific team. Make people move in a direction they hadn't moved before. That's not on the CV. It doesn't show up in a standard interview. And it rarely gets uncovered in a reference check. Because the clues are always there. In what someone has done. How they've done it. What they said they would do at each stage of their career — and what actually transpired. When you search for patterns across someone's history a picture emerges. And more often than not what was said and what was delivered tell two very different stories. Most assessment processes never look for that gap. They take the narrative at face value because it's compelling and the person in front of them is confident and well presented. The hire that moves the needle isn't always the most impressive person in the process. It's the one whose story holds up when you look underneath it. What does your current process do to find that?

This firm lost their best grad in month three. Not because of work or hours. She left because she felt invisible. Last month, a client called me in a panic. Their star graduate - first class honours, Law Review, multiple offers - had just resigned after 3 months. "She said we made her feel invisible," the Partner told me, confused. So I called the graduate to understand: On her first day, she got a desk and a laptop and was told to "dive in." No tour, no introductions, no orientation. For three months, she worked on research tasks, but: Nobody introduced her to the team beyond her supervisor. Partners walked past her desk but never acknowledged her. She ate lunch alone every day. "I felt like a piece of furniture," she said.  "Like they'd forgotten they’d hired an actual person." The breaking point: two Partners discussed a matter she’d worked on, as if the work had appeared magically. No mention of her contribution, no acknowledgment she was even there. "I realized if I disappeared tomorrow, it would take them weeks to notice." She’s now thriving at a firm where the her boss introduced her to every team member on day one. Technical onboarding is easy. Human onboarding - making someone feel valued and included - is where most firms fail. Your best graduates have options. If you treat them like invisible furniture, they’ll find firms that actually see them. #recrevigroup #legalrecruitment #lawyer #law #lawfirm #biglaw #legaljobs #hiring

I spoke with 203 job seekers since January and one word summarizes their frustration: misalignment Misalignment within hiring teams. Imagine (or remember) a time when you're interviewing with a company and everything is going well. They like you and you like them. You're 6-8 rounds of interviews in (because they struggle to pull the trigger). You finish your final interview. Now, you're waiting for an offer. You're sure you got this one. But you get a rejection instead. This rejection contains feedback. You don't have enough experience in a specific area. Why did it take 6-8 rounds of interviews to figure that out? The hiring team is misaligned on the requirements for the position. I've spoken to job seekers that completed multiple rounds of interviews. Completed online assessments. Submitted take home assignments after hours of work. Just to get to rejected because they're not senior enough or they don't have enough years of experience in a piece of tech (that hasn't existed that long). Or my favorite: they decided to promote an internal candidate. Why interview anyone externally at all? Those sorts of issues should have been caught at the initial application review or the phone screen. Not after round 8, an online assessment, and take home projects. Having run entire hiring processes from end to end, I know this is a major issue. After every rejection, hiring teams should figure out why a poorly qualified candidate made it that far in the process. Then use that feedback to correct the screening process. Wasting time with those sorts of poorly run processes leave job seekers feeling discouraged. -- #techjobs #jobseekers #newgrads #students #interviewpreparation

I hear from companies all the time that they are struggling to find talent to fill their open roles. The truth, however, is that there is no shortage of strong procurement candidates available. In fact, the market is full of capable people who are ready to work and ready to move quickly when the right role comes along. So the breakdown is happening somewhere else, and in my mind it’s largely a result of the pace of hiring decisions. Simply put, many candidates are moving faster than the organizations interviewing them. They apply with urgency, interview promptly, and follow up consistently. But once they enter the process, they encounter delays caused by shifting priorities, unclear internal alignment, or multiple rounds of approvals that slow everything down. When a process takes too long, the best candidates do what anyone would do. They keep looking. They pursue other conversations. They accept roles with organizations that move with clarity and intention, or they force you to compete for their skills in a multi-offer situation. At best, they still join your company, but with lingering questions about what the process might reveal about how decisions are made internally. Strong hiring is not only about choosing the right person. It is about respecting the pace of the market, staying aligned internally, and making decisions before great candidates are forced to move on. The companies that will win in this market are the ones that treat hiring as a priority, not an afterthought. Because talent is available. It’s the process that needs to catch up.

Most hiring managers don’t actually know what they want. They have a job description. Approved. Polished. Pages long. But clarity? Not really. Because a job description isn’t clarity. It’s documentation. Ask what success looks like in the first six months. Ask what problem this role truly solves. Ask what actually matters. The answers change. Or depend on who’s in the room. So interviews become subjective. Feedback conflicts. And hiring decisions turn into opinions. Vague roles attract vague candidates. Shifting expectations break hiring processes. Hiring doesn’t fail because job descriptions are missing. It fails because clarity is. And clarity isn’t a nice-to-have in hiring. It’s the job.

Why smart people still fail in the wrong environment. Yesterday I wrote about a candidate who had two roles that didn’t work out, and how those experiences only made sense in hindsight. Today is the other side of that coin. Because hiring managers see this happen all the time… and still miss it. A candidate looks great on paper. Strong experience, good track record, interviews well enough. You make the hire, feel confident about it, and six months later it’s not working. Not because they aren’t capable. Because they were never set up to succeed in your environment. Most hiring processes don’t actually test for this. They test for experience, technical capability, and a version of “fit” that usually just means familiarity. Have they worked in a similar company, similar industry, similar role title. That tells you where they’ve been. It doesn’t tell you how they operate. If you want to improve your hit rate, you need to get much clearer on that. What sort of environment does this person do their best work in. How do they handle pace, ambiguity, structure, stakeholder pressure. What frustrates them, and what enables them. And just as importantly, you need to be honest about your own environment. Is it structured or chaotic. Fast-moving or slow and consensus-driven. Clear decision-making or layered and political. Most businesses describe themselves as the version they aspire to be, not the one that actually exists. That gap is where good hires go wrong. The candidates who have had a role not work out are often the most useful here. If you ask the right questions, they can tell you exactly what conditions don’t work for them and why. That is far more predictive than a polished success story. Done well, this shifts hiring from “they look right” to “they will work here.” And when you get that right, you stop seeing good people fail in your business, and start seeing them perform the way their CV suggested they would. P.S. Most hiring mistakes aren’t about capability. They’re about context.

I just received a rejection email for a role I applied to in July 2025. That’s not feedback. That’s not closure. That’s a sign of an unhealthy hiring pipeline. From the recruiting side, I want to say this clearly: it should not take six months to close the loop with a candidate. When pipelines are left open indefinitely, candidates are left in limbo. They stop trusting the process. They stop engaging. And eventually, they stop believing the system works at all. This isn’t about blaming recruiters. It’s about broken processes and misaligned expectations. Unhealthy pipelines usually happen when: Roles stay open without clear ownership Hiring priorities shift but communication doesn’t ATS systems aren’t actively managed Candidates are treated as “future inventory” instead of humans No one is accountable for closing the loop And the impact is real. Candidates plan their lives around these decisions. They wait. They hope. They follow up. Silence creates anxiety, self-doubt, and burnout — all of which are avoidable. Here’s what healthy pipelines actually look like: Clear timelines shared upfront Regular touchpoints, even when there’s no update Defined decision owners Roles closed when hiring pauses Respect for the candidate’s time and emotional energy Recruiting isn’t just about filling roles. It’s about stewardship of trust. If your process leaves candidates waiting months for a no, the problem isn’t the talent — it’s the pipeline. We can do better. And when we do, everyone wins. #TalentAcquisition #Recruiting #CandidateExperience #HiringProcess #PeopleFirst #HumanCenteredHiring #HRCommunity #JobSearch #FutureOfWork

I had an initial interview recently that was scheduled for 30 minutes. The hiring manager joined late, but the conversation ended up going well — so well that they extended the time, talked through the interview process, and said they wanted to move me forward to the next round to go deeper. They also shared they’d be out of office for a week and that next steps would be scheduled after they returned. The week I expected to receive the calendar invite, I received a short, generic rejection email. This isn’t just “job search is tough.” This is a process issue. Interviews are not just casual chats — they’re a business process with real human impact. If hiring managers are going to own hiring decisions, they need real training in: • structured interviews and consistent evaluation • candidate communication standards • decision hygiene (don’t “sell” next steps if you’re still unsure) • basic respect for people’s time and emotional labor And while we’re here: it should not take 5–6 rounds to figure out if someone can do the job. If your process requires that many hoops, your role clarity, alignment, or decision-making is broken. Candidates don’t expect perfection. We do expect professionalism. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk 💜 #Interviewing #CandidateExperience #PeopleOps #TalentAcquisition #Leadership #opentowork #leadershipdevelopment

The heavy cost of slow hiring 👇 I see this conversation happen all the time: Recruiter: “The candidate accepted another offer.” Manager: “But we were their first choice!” Recruiter: “You were.” Manager” “What happened?” Recruiter: “Your 8-week process. The other company? 3 weeks.” Why companies lose top talent: 1. The "perfect candidate" myth → Chasing impossible requirements → Meanwhile, great candidates accept other offers → The market moves faster than your wishlist 2. Death by committee → “Everyone must agree” → No one decides → Talent then walks away 3. Interview fatigue → 6+ rounds of same questions → Exhausted candidates → Diminishing returns 4. Fear paralysis → Obsessing over bad hire risk → Missing great talent → Competitors move faster 5. Process chaos → Delayed feedback → Poor communication → Candidates feel devalued 6. Assessment overload → 10+ hour assignments → Testing patience, not skills → Top talent opts out How to navigate this as a jobseeker: ↳ Create Urgency "I'm in later stages with other companies" isn't manipulative, it can help with planning. ↳ Watch Their Communication Radio silence or constant reschedules aren't just annoying, they can be red flags. ↳ Ask About Timeline Early "What does your hiring timeline look like?" saves everyone time and sets expectations. ↳ Trust Your Gut If they can't make hiring decisions efficiently, imagine how they handle business decisions. ↳ Keep Your Search Active Until you have a signed offer, keep looking. Being told “you’re the top candidate" isn't an offer letter. The strongest professional relationships start with mutual respect. That begins with how you handle the hiring process. Been in this situation? Share your story 👇 ♻️ Repost to help your network ➕ Follow me for more insights on navigating today's complex job market