THE LEAFLET

October 09 2025

 why it’s important to “inoculate” your hires to the hard parts of the job, hiring as a chance to build trust, hiring isn’t just for hiring

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO “INOCULATE” YOUR HIRES TO THE HARD PARTS OF THE JOB

I tell hiring managers to give candidates a direct dose of what is difficult about the job throughout the interview process, from the first conversation to the call when they make an offer. Giving candidates these doses of the difficult is like “inoculating” them against a virus.

I recommend this because:

1. Committing to competencies and goals before accepting the job improves performance on the job.

2. Doing so after having experienced what’s challenging improves performance further. Later when things get hard:

1. They’re less likely to externalize (“This is not what I signed up for”) 

2. They’re more likely to take responsibility for succeeding (“I chose this job even though I knew this would be challenging”).

3. The performance boost is not in them knowing early on (i.e. “getting used to it”) – it’s in them having agreed to it before saying yes to the job. The last time they’ll agree to something foundationally challenging is before they accept the job.

-ben

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HIRING AS A CHANCE TO BUILD TRUST, NOW AND LATER

So many hiring processes fall into a kind of “interpretive theater” where both sides make sales-y, low-information claims that are hard to verify or falsify. Both sides put on a show. Both sides know, deep down, the show isn’t a trustworthy representation of the candidate or the organization.

As a hiring manager, you can opt out of the theater. Instead, you can optimize for delivering information about the job - even, especially, the information that doesn’t necessarily make you look good. Here’s what’s going to be hard about this. Here’s what even our high-performing, culture bearers find rigorous. Here’s our in-house “unreasonable” expectation that can make us feel weird to some and just right to others.

Providing unattractive information upfront, when most everyone has come to expect the song and dance, can build trust with some candidates right away. They take you more seriously, maybe take you at your word, because you’ve done something that is a) unusual and b) could appear to cut against your self-interest.

For other candidates who still have some healthy skepticism, you are setting yourself up to gain their trust later. Because you’re giving information about how things actually go and what’s actually expected around here, those skeptics will see that you weren’t blowing smoke back in the interview process, when you had every incentive to do so. The way you said it works around here is in fact how it works around here. You did them the service of telling them so upfront and giving them the agency of an opt-out.

-ben & eric

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HIRING ISN’T JUST FOR HIRING

Hiring isn’t just for hiring, i.e., bringing strangers onto the team. You can choose to “re-hire” the people you already have at pretty much any moment. In this approach, “hiring” is a repertoire of moves that includes:

• Defining what success looks like as concretely as you can

• Naming in advance what will be challenging about the endeavor

• Prompting the prospective “hire” to opt-in to those same challenges

You can re-hire someone simply because you’re noticing that the vibes seem off or your team is unfocused. In addition to somewhat arbitrary “reading the room” instances, consider these naturally occurring “re-hiring” moments:

• a special project that sits within or nearby someone’s existing job description

• a promotion 

• a performance improvement plan (PIP)

• an upcoming new season for organizations that have seasonal work. Ex: academic year, election cycle, legislative session, key conferences or performances.

-eric

Read the rest here.

COMPELLING QUOTES

Novelist Teju Cole on presence after death:

The earlier privilege of remaining uncaptured, of dying with one’s death, was lost. Should the dead move around us like those who haven’t died? Should their presence be more material than those one sees in dreams?

Writer Sasha Chapin on the curse of the Bay Area:

The Bay Area has a curse. It is the curse of Aboutness. Social life here is not regarded as something people do naturally, an organic element of being. It has to be About something. In New York, it’s an important component of the human repertoire to dress up nicely, gather, drink and eat, be part of the throng. In the Bay, most gatherings have the sweaty air of Purpose.

Writer Adam Gopnik on compromise:

Compromise is a knot tied tight between competing decencies.

Keep going, keep growing,

Ben & Eric