Why good companies still mishire at the senior level
Senior mishires almost never look like mishires at the offer stage. They look like clean references, strong interviews, and a sensible compensation negotiation. The damage shows up in quarter three, when the team has reorganised around a person whose operating model does not match the company they joined.
After running this loop more than a hundred times, the same five patterns repeat.
1. Hiring for a previous environment
The candidate's last company had a clean revenue motion, a mature data team, and three layers of management between them and the work. Your company has none of those. You did not hire a leader. You hired the person who used to be supported by a leader.
The check: ask the candidate to describe a quarter where they did the work themselves because the system they expected was not there. If they cannot, they probably never have.
2. Hiring on narrative, not on artifacts
Strong narrators interview well. Strong operators ship documents. Ask to see real artifacts: a hiring rubric, a forecast, a post-mortem, a written strategy memo. Not slides. Documents.
If none exist, you are hiring on narrative.
3. Hiring for the company you describe, not the company you are
Founders pitch the future. Senior candidates accept the offer based on the pitch. When the actual company turns out to be earlier, messier, or less resourced, the candidate either disengages or tries to rebuild the company they thought they joined.
The check: walk every shortlisted candidate through one real, ugly week of the company. Last quarter's missed number. The customer who churned. The hire who did not work out. Watch what they do with it.
4. Letting the candidate set the scope
If the scope of the role moves during the interview process to match what the candidate wants to do, you are about to hire a role that the company does not actually need. Write the scorecard before the first conversation. Refuse to amend it for any one candidate.
5. Skipping the working session
A working session is the only interview format that exposes how a person actually thinks. Two hours. A real problem. A whiteboard or a document. No deck.
Every senior search we run ends with one. Every mishire we have ever audited skipped it.
What Marlcedon ships into this
Every senior search comes with a written scorecard signed by the partner, an artifact review for the final two candidates, a working session conducted by a senior operator, and a 90-day rubric the hire is measured against.
If the hire does not clear the rubric, we replace, refund, or absorb the gap. The risk does not transfer to the client. That is the only honest way to sell senior search.
See how this works inside an active engagement.
Walk through compliance, continuity, and pricing with our companies team.