We all know that something is really off when it comes to recruiting. There’s something about today’s job market that doesn’t quite add up.

On one hand, hiring processes have become incredibly complex:

• Multiple interview rounds
• Case studies and assignments
• Personality and cognitive tests
• Endless filtering and narrow selection criteria

The signal is clear: companies are trying to find exceptional people and its harder to pass all steps.

But then you look inside most organizations… and what you find is a pretty normal distribution of competence. Some great people, some average, some underperformers, some idiots, just like anywhere else.

So here’s the paradox:

If hiring has become this selective, why don’t the outcomes reflect that?

A few possible explanations:

• Hiring processes optimize for the wrong signals (interview performance ≠ job performance)
• Risk aversion leads to over-filtering but not better decisions
• Internal systems (management, incentives, culture) shape performance more than hiring does
• Or the process itself is more about signaling rigor than actually improving outcomes

Curious how others see this.
Is hiring actually getting better or just more complicated to give the impression of the risk free recruitment?