You raise hiring standards without slowing down by writing the standard down and sharing it, because vague standards — not high ones — are what make hiring slow. CPG Recruitment raised its bar and cut average time-to-fill from 68 days to 37 at the same time. Those two things are not in tension, and believing they are is what keeps most companies hiring people they would not hire again.
How do you know your standards have slipped?
Run the re-hire test. Go through the team name by name and ask honestly: knowing everything we know now, would we enthusiastically hire this person again today? Not “are they fine.” Enthusiastically.
Every name that produces hesitation came through a process that is still running unchanged. That is the finding — it is a diagnosis of the standard, not a judgment of the person. The second tell is the question a hiring team leads with. “Can they do the job?” and “is this the best person we can get for this seat?” sound similar and build very different companies over five years.
Why does a vague standard slow hiring down?
Because most of the time lost in a slow search is spent re-deciding the role rather than evaluating candidates. Every time a new interviewer joins with a different mental picture, the criteria reset and the previous weeks of screening lose their value. That is rework, and rework is invisible on a calendar.
Fix the criteria and the arithmetic changes. Pre-screening removes mismatches in minutes instead of weeks, and the shortlist becomes three to five genuine finalists rather than fifteen maybes. That is where the 68-to-37-day improvement came from — not from cutting corners or interviewing faster, but from refusing to re-open the definition of the role halfway through. The document that fixes it is the Ideal Candidate Profile, agreed in the work that happens before a job is posted.
Why must every interview stage test something different?
Because rounds that duplicate each other are theatre, and strong candidates read them as disorganisation rather than rigour. A demanding process earns its length only when each stage answers a question the previous one did not.
A process that holds up looks like this: a screen for capability, a conversation about how the person actually works, a practical exercise tied to the real job, a session with the people they would sit beside daily, and genuine reference checks. Five stages asking variations of the same questions is not thoroughness — it is delay, and it costs you the candidates who have options.
What separates a high standard from an unrealistic requirement?
High standards are demanding about outcomes and evidence. Unrealistic requirements are demanding about credentials. “Has taken a team through a systems migration and can walk us through how” is a high standard. “Twelve years in this exact industry plus a specific certification” is usually a wish list that eliminates excellent people for no gain.
The test is whether a requirement would change your decision about a real candidate in front of you. If it would not, it is decoration — and decoration is how a list gets long enough that every reviewer quietly picks their own three favourites. Being specific about outcomes never shrinks the pool; being specific about credentials almost always does, which is the heart of skills-based versus degree-based hiring.
What does tolerating a weak hire signal to everyone else?
That the bar is negotiable, and your strongest performers hear it first. They are the ones absorbing the extra work and quietly redoing what did not get done, so they identify a weak hire well before management does.
Left unaddressed it sends two messages nobody intended: mediocrity is acceptable here, and leadership cannot see it. That is the point at which your best people start returning recruiter calls. Losing one excellent employee in order to keep one weak one is the worst trade available, and it never appears on a spreadsheet. Christian Saab, who founded CPG Recruitment in March 2020 and speaks on this at TEDx, makes the same case in are your hiring standards too low?
Frequently Asked Questions
Should you leave a seat empty rather than lower the bar?
Usually yes, when the alternative is a hire you already have doubts about. An empty seat is a cost you can see and plan around; a wrong hire in a key seat is a cost that compounds before anyone notices. The exception is when the vacancy is actively burning out the team — then bring in contract or interim help rather than making a permanent decision under pressure.
How do you raise standards without candidates walking away?
Be fast, be transparent, and make every stage earn its place. Tell candidates up front how many steps there are and what each one is for, then hold to that timeline. Strong candidates respect a demanding process that is well run; what they abandon is silence, rescheduling, and rounds that clearly repeat each other.
Can a small business compete for top people?
Yes, on things large companies cannot match: real ownership, direct access to leadership, visible impact and speed. Across 25+ industries we have watched smaller employers win candidates they had no business winning on salary alone. What loses those candidates is rarely company size — it is a sloppy process that previews what working there will feel like.
What about people already on the team who would not pass the new bar?
Raising the hiring bar is not a reason to clear house. Start by making expectations explicit and giving people a real chance to meet them — many will, once the standard is finally stated out loud. What is not fair to anyone is holding candidates to a bar you have never articulated to your existing team.
If the re-hire test produced names you hesitated on, the next role you open is where it gets fixed. Bring CPG Recruitment in to set the bar and run the process — the standard gets written down before a single resume is reviewed. To talk through the role you are about to open, contact CPG Recruitment directly.