“Let’s See a Few More Candidates” — And Other Common Hiring Mistakes Ruining Your Hiring Life

One of the most damaging hiring mistakes leaders make is hesitation — the infamous “Let’s see a few more candidates.” This false sense of diligence is actually indecision in disguise. When top A Player candidates are on the table, slow hiring decisions destroy momentum, waste recruiter effort, and drive elite talent straight into competitors’ hands. The best leaders recognize greatness when it’s in front of them — and act fast.

• Saying “Let’s see a few more candidates” signals indecision, distrust, and lack of clarity — not strategy.

• A Players won’t wait. The best candidates move fast, and great companies match their pace.

• The “more candidates” mindset is hiring FOMO — it dilutes focus, drags timelines, and kills results.

• Use Job Scorecards and Performance Profiles to define success up front so you can recognize A Players immediately.

• Topgrading interviews validate whether a candidate has the performance genetics of an A Player — use them to confirm, not stall.

• The Optimal Stopping Theory proves that after reviewing a few high-quality candidates, continuing the search decreases decision quality.

• The five-step high-performance hiring playbook:

  • • Define A Player success early.
    • Recruit hard, screen fast.
    • Conduct quick chemistry checks.
    • Topgrade to confirm performance.
    • Move decisively on great candidates.

• Hesitation costs you your dream candidate. Recognize top talent when it’s in the room — and hire them before someone else does.

Picture this: You’re dating. But not just dating — you’re on a heater.

For the ladies: Tom Brady calls. You hit it off! Eli Manning shows up with great banter and no fumbles. Then Glenn Powell texts and says he loves small yappy dogs, too. For the guys, Carrie Underwood sits across from you at dinner, looking even better than in the Sunday Night Football intro. Jennifer Aniston laughs at your dad jokes. Sydney Sweeney asks if you want to split dessert.

And what do you say?

“They’re all great, but… I think I want to see a few more candidates.”

Are you out of your mind???

Congratulations. You’ve just fumbled the love of your life. And you’ve just reenacted one of the most frustrating patterns in hiring: the manager who sees a slate of three to four top-tier, targeted, pre-vetted A Player candidates — and says the fateful words:

“Let’s keep looking.”

This is the talent version of swiping past your dream partner because you’re convinced something better is a few scrolls away. It’s one of the most common hiring mistakes — indecision dressed up as strategy. And it’s killing your hiring.

You know this scenario. You’re a recruiter. You’ve crushed it. You’ve refined the hiring process, built the funnel, sourced intelligently, screened ruthlessly, and now you’ve got 3-4 semi-finalist A Player candidates prepped and ready to meet the hiring manager.

These aren’t “meh” résumés off of Indeed. These are rifle-shot-targeted, top 10% in the industry. Culture fits. They’re coachable. They’re in the zone, ready to move. This is your A-list dance card.

And what does the hiring manager say?

“Let’s see a few more candidates.”

No. Let’s not.

This is the part where hiring expert Lou Adler throws his coffee. And where you — if you’re serious about building a team of A Players — need to stop and realize what’s really going on.

In Scaling Up, we preach that your people decision comes first. Get the right people in the right seats, and strategy, execution, and cash follow. If your team is off, everything is off.

At A Player Advantage, we raise the bar higher: we build teams with over 90% A Players — the top 10% in their role, for the comp you offer, and people you’d enthusiastically rehire. These are not average hires. They’re multipliers. They change the game.

But hiring a team of A Players doesn’t happen by accident or volume. It happens through precision, scorecards, culture alignment, smart, fast next steps, and intensely vetting results with Topgrading interviews. Which is why the moment a hiring manager hesitates on three strong candidates, the process starts to break down.

This isn’t a reality show. It’s not The Bachelor. It’s not a fantasy draft. You don’t get points for indecision. And A Players don’t wait around.

The idea that more candidates will yield better hiring decisions is seductive. What it actually does is erode momentum, drag out the interview process, and cause top talent to lose interest or get snapped up by faster-moving competitors.

When you say, “I want to see more candidates,” what you’re actually saying is:

• I don’t trust the hiring process.

• I’m looking for something that doesn’t exist.

• I want to procrastinate.

• I don’t know how to recognize greatness when I see it.

Oof. Not a good look for leadership.

Let’s call it what it is: hiring FOMO. The belief that there’s always a perfect candidate around the corner — someone just a little better — leads to epic hiring mistakes.

But here’s the brutal truth: if you’ve been presented with three legit A Players, and you don’t act, you’re not hiring. You’re hoarding, and this is a mistake you can’t afford to make.

We’ve seen it too many times. A perfect-fit, top-performing candidate leaves the pool. The manager delays the hiring process, chasing a multi-headed chimera — not a unicorn. Four weeks later, they circle back and ask if that first candidate is still available.

They’re not. They’re already winning at your competitor’s company.

There’s a math-backed concept called Optimal Stopping Theory — the science of knowing when to stop looking and start choosing. It’s been applied to everything from hiring to apartment hunting to dating.

Here’s the kicker: the more you look, the more you confuse yourself. After reviewing a few high-quality, aligned, and qualified applicants, continuing to search doesn’t increase your odds of a better hire — it increases your risk of missing a great one.

Especially when your recruiter has already filtered for Job Scorecard and Performance Profile match, values alignment, and culture fit. When that’s in place, three to four great candidates is the finish line, not the warm-up.

Yes — we hunt for unicorns. In fact, at A Player Advantage, we pride ourselves on it. But here’s the real tragedy: when a unicorn actually shows up — fully vetted, values-aligned, scorecard-matched, with their performance genetics confirmed through Topgrading — and you still say, “Let’s keep looking.” Top performers are slipping through your fingers.

Great leaders don’t let A Players walk out the door. They recognize rare talent when it’s in front of them and act decisively.

Here’s the five-step playbook for a high-performance hiring process:

1. Define the A Player up front.
   Use both a Job Scorecard and a Performance Profile, not a generic job description. Know what great looks like before you send out the job postings.
2. Recruit hard, screen fast.
   You’re not assembling a buffet. You’re hiring the best few candidates who fit your standard. A great recruiter is going to a priori filter out candidates who don’t meet the A Player standard set by the Job Scorecard and Performance Profile.
3. Fast chemistry checks.
   Think of first screening interviews like high-intent dates. Focused, quick, and aligned to mission and values. If overall alignment is good, schedule that next date quickly to take them off the market.
4. Topgrade as the blood test.
   This deep-dive interview is a critical part of your hiring strategy — it allows you to vet candidates based on whether they’ve consistently delivered real results. No fluff. No spin. Just truth. It validates their A Player performance genetics — patterns of impact, growth, and accountability over time.
5. Move decisively.
   If you’ve got a great candidate, make the winning offer. A Players won’t wait. They don’t need to. And they shouldn’t.

Let’s relate your hiring strategy back to dating.

Carrie Underwood just said yes to another date. She’s all in. She fits your life, your values, your future. But you hesitate — because maybe, just maybe, someone “better” might come along.

She leaves.

And she’s not looking back.

This is exactly what happens when you stall on hiring a top candidate. They feel the hesitation, and they move on — often to someone who simply moved faster. Someone who recognized what they had.

As the top A Player recruiting firm in the free world, we obsess over this moment.

So what do we do when our client is down to three or four semifinalists? Right as we launch them into the Topgrading process, we make one final push — a last-ditch blitz to see if we can uncover someone even stronger. Metaphorically, we’re reaching out to the Margot Robbies, Ariana Grandes, and Keira Knightleys of the talent pool before we send the offer — just to make absolutely sure we’re hiring the best.

It’s one final swipe at greatness.

Sometimes it pays off.

Most times? The best are already in the room.

But here’s the key: we do the work to know for sure — and we move fast either way.

At A Player Advantage, we help growth-minded companies build elite teams of high performers using the Scaling Up platform, Topgrading tools, and a proven, precision-built hiring process.

We don’t flood your inbox with noise. We bring you three or four candidates that matter — the ones that move the needle — and we move fast to help you secure them.

So the next time you’re handed a dance card with three A Player finalists?

Don’t wait.

Don’t blink.

Don’t miss your Carrie.

We coach, recruit, and scale A Player teams better than anyone.  Let’s talk if you’re serious about building a team that wins.

Rick Crossland is an internationally known expert and thought leader on A Player talent. A leading certified Scaling Up coach and the author of the acclaimed business book The A Player, Rick’s innovative approach to recruiting, interviewing, validating, and developing high performers—A Players—has been featured in leading business publications such as Inc.com, Entrepreneur.com, Fortune.com, Recruiter.com, Columbus CEO, and Leadership Insights. With clients around the world, his expertise helps businesses scale by building high-performance teams that drive superior results. Follow Rick on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).