Our HR Director is an incredibly thorough high Fact Finder who insists on conducting exhaustive background checks, multiple cognitive tests, and five rounds of interviews. We are losing great executive candidates to faster competitors. How do we speed up their process?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a classic conative conflict. Your HR Director is wired to minimize risk by gathering as much data as possible, which is a strength, but when it paralyzes execution, it becomes a liability. To resolve this, you need to establish clear, objective boundaries that satisfy their need for thoroughness while maintaining the speed required in a competitive hiring market. Sit down with them and analyze their process using the Kolbe framework. Acknowledge that their high Fact Finder drive keeps the company safe from bad hires, but explain the cost of lost opportunity. Work together to redesign the hiring system with strict time-bound parameters. Define the exact, non-negotiable data points required for a hiring decision, and eliminate redundant interview steps. For instance, agree to a maximum of three rounds of interviews and a hard seventy-two-hour limit to extend an offer once a finalist is identified. Add a metric to your weekly Scorecard that tracks the days-to-hire for key open seats. By turning speed into a measurable operational target, you allow their natural conative drive to focus on optimizing the process for both accuracy and speed, rather than letting information gathering run open-ended.