Why Your Search Isn't Working (It's Probably Not Comp)

We're working a search right now that, on paper, should be straightforward. The title is reasonable. The salary is fair. The company is solid. And we cannot get it filled.

Not because qualified candidates don't exist. We've sent three of them. All had the right experience level. One came from the home industry. Two came from fashion with transferable skills. The client passed on every one, each time for a different reason: too much product development focus, too creative, not the right personality fit.

None of those reasons are wrong, exactly. But when you pass on three qualified candidates for three different subjective reasons, you have to step back and ask whether the issue is the candidates or whether the search itself has too many invisible filters stacked on top of each other.

Here's what's happening beneath the surface on this one. The role requires five days a week in the office. The brand, while established, isn't one most candidates in this space would recognize by name. And the client is targeting people from more elevated companies in home or fashion.

Each of those factors on its own is manageable. But combined, they create a situation where the candidate sitting across the table is asking a very rational question: why would I leave a role I'm comfortable in to commute five days a week for a brand I've never heard of?

That question gets louder at the associate level, where we're seeing the strongest resistance to full-time office mandates. These candidates are selective. They have options. And when they weigh a known quantity against an unfamiliar brand with zero flexibility, the math doesn't work in the client's favor, regardless of whether the comp is competitive.

The fix here probably isn't lowering the salary or dramatically changing the job description. It's smaller than that. Moving from five days to four in the office would change the conversation with candidates almost immediately. That one day of flexibility signals something about the company's culture that candidates care about right now, maybe more than they care about the title or the exact dollar amount.

But the other piece is harder to solve, and it's the one I see stalling searches more often than anything else this year. When a hiring manager has a clear picture in their head of exactly who they want, including personality and energy and "feel," they will keep passing on qualified people until someone walks through the door who matches the full image. Sometimes that person shows up in week three. Sometimes it takes five months. And sometimes the search quietly dies because the gap between what's available and what's imagined never closes.

I'm not saying hiring managers should settle. Cultural fit matters, and so does instinct about a candidate's energy. But there's a real cost to treating every preference as a requirement. When you combine a rigid RTO policy with a narrow industry target, limited brand recognition, and subjective filters that only surface after an interview, you're not running a search anymore. You're waiting for a unicorn.

The companies filling roles fastest right now are the ones willing to flex on at least one of those variables. Usually it's the office policy. Sometimes it's broadening the industry background they'll consider. The ones who won't flex on anything are the ones calling us two months in, frustrated that the market isn't producing what they need.

The market is producing plenty. The question is whether you've left enough room to see it.