How a Children's Toy Cost a CEO a Top IT Talent

When EGO Stands in the Way of Good Hiring

Can a bad hiring manager ruin a perfect job interview and turn away top talent?

When a hiring mistake in the IT industry occurs, companies usually blame the candidates.

However, what happens when the main culprit is the decision-maker's ego?

Whether a senior developer or a top business developer is in the selection process, successful recruitment fails if C-level managers allow distractions to cloud their judgment.

In this blog, we analyse how ego and cognitive lapses during the final tech interview directly sabotage hiring, and how a single reckless decision can cost you months of searching for a new employee.

Ego, as a psychological construct, balances between our unconscious, internal needs and what the outside world imposes on us. For it to function successfully, both sides must be satisfied.

When this fails, the ego becomes rigid, gets stuck, and blocks the individual's full potential.

Unfortunately, this doesn't just happen in our private lives; it also occurs in the professional environment, where a rigid ego often becomes an insurmountable obstacle to building quality business relationships.

How C-Level Managers Unconsciously Sabotage Recruitment

If we look at this through the prism of hiring, ego can seriously jeopardise the quality of selection if we allow it to.

Throughout my recruitment career, I have often noticed that people in high positions - a CEO, CTO, or CPO - pressed by their responsibilities, allow themselves to approach the selection process unprofessionally.

The fact that they have too much work is undeniable.

However, if a position is open and requires their participation in the interview, they must adapt their schedule to the process.

The person on the other side of the screen or table usually already has a job and isn't actively looking for a change.

When it reaches the level of being interviewed by an executive board member, rest assured that you are not facing an intern, but a senior developer or a leader who will significantly impact the future of the entire company.

Case 1: How a Children's Toy Cost the Company a Business Developer

I had a situation where a candidate passed 4 demanding rounds of a tech interview and successfully solved a case study.

The direct hiring manager, who was supposed to be his supervisor, was thrilled - she said the candidate was "the one" and that they were preparing an offer.

The final conversation with the CEO was announced merely as a formality, as the director usually doesn't interfere in such decisions.

And then the interview happened. The candidate contacted me right after the conversation, visibly confused by the unprofessional approach.

The CEO squeezed the meeting into a tight window between dropping his child off at dance practice and returning home, and immediately announced that the interview would be cut short.

During the conversation, another child ran into the room unclothed, bringing a toy that the CEO started fixing right in front of the candidate.

The candidate was caught completely off guard. He wasn't sure if anyone was even listening or if it made sense to continue, but he professionally presented his views until the end - just as he had done in the previous rounds.

Shortly after, a cold shower came from the hiring manager: the candidate was rejected because the CEO judged him to lack "drive."

The Science Behind the Failed Interview: What Actually Happened?

Was the problem really a lack of drive? Or the harsh fact that the human brain cannot perform two cognitively demanding tasks at the same time?

Reflexively focused on fixing the toy - which is a purely logical process - the manager's brain entered what is known as a Cognitive Tunnelling.

In this state, attention radically narrows down to a single mechanical problem, while the surroundings are completely ignored.

According to the Systemizing-Empathizing Theory by the famous psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen, the analytical and social modes of operation in our brain function like a see-saw.

When the CEO activated systemising to solve the problem with the plastic and gears, he automatically shut down the neurological centres responsible for empathy and social evaluation.

The Price of Defying Human Cognition

Besides scientific facts, such a move is, above all, unprofessional - both toward one's own team and toward the candidate.

The technical expertise with which this CEO leads the company is unquestionable.

However, the delusion that this same expertise makes him immune to the laws of human cognition is precisely the moment that cost him dearly:

• He lost an excellent candidate.
• He lost the agency he was cooperating with.
• He extended the search for a new employee by another 6 months.

Were those twenty or so minutes between dance practice and fixing a toy worth losing so much money and time invested in the process?

This person was supposed to take over the Business Developer position in Serbia because the previous one had left. While the CEO was fixing the toy, sales of their product in our market stood still for months.

Family must be above work, that is undeniable. But work must also get its reserved time.

If family obligations were the priority at that moment, the interview should have been postponed to a time when it was possible to be cognitively present.

I don't see this as a lack of time, but as recklessness born of ego - the belief that one can do it all, even defy cognitive patterns that are just as deeply rooted as the functioning of the heart or stomach.

Case 2: When a CTO Stifles Team Productivity Due to Their Own Ego

Another concrete example where ego takes priority over business happened with a CTO in a corporation.

When his Engineering Manager presented a proposal to solve a problem that was different but far more productive than the existing one, the CTO simply snapped, "This is how things are done here, and that's how we will continue to do them."

Two months later, the Engineering Manager moved to another company where he is expected to think and provide innovative solutions.

The old company, in return, gets a new recruitment process for its replacement, which again drains months and money.

This scenario could have been prevented during the previous selection process.

If the company had a clear awareness of its needs, it would have chosen a manager who doesn't offer ideas but blindly executes orders - which is entirely legitimate if that is the actual need of the system.

Instead, because of the hiring manager's ego, the company had to launch two expensive recruitment processes for the same position in less than a year.

A Lesson for Successful Leaders: Choose What You Actually Need

Organisations have different profiles of people and working styles, and many managers are not aware of their cognitive biases at all.

Still, one thing can easily be prevented: if, as a hiring manager, you do not want your decisions to be questioned, simply do not hire people who believe that is the only right way to do their job.

I know that proactive candidates sound better in an interview, but they are not what such a company truly needs, and that must be openly admitted.

Not many words need to be wasted on respecting the process, focusing, and allocating time for an interview - that is the foundation of business culture.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to one golden rule: treat candidates the way you would want to be treated, and don't let ego cost your company its hard-earned money.