When Good Candidates Don’t Get Hired (and Why That Happens)

In our first short episode Matt and James dive into something every hiring manager and recruiter has faced:

• Candidates who seem like a great fit — strong CV, good early interviews — but don’t make it through.
• Or, just as often, the ones that slip through the cracks but might have been the right hire.
• Drawing on Matt’s years of experience leading engineering teams, we talk through:
• Why hiring starts with understanding the real problem you’re solving
• How the cost of a “wrong hire” compares to the risk of missing the right person
• What makes hiring for deep tech roles fundamentally different from product-focused startups
• Why values alignment can matter more than technical brilliance
• What engineers should look for when evaluating whether a startup is worth joiningIf you're scaling a team or navigating your next move as an engineer, this episode offers a grounded look at where things go right — and wrong — in the hiring process.

🔎 Full episodes & show notes at whatnext.dev