Hey Little Pineapple,

A client of mine, let's call him Greg, once told me about the best moment of his career.

Getting hired at a company he'd wanted to join for years.

Greg walked me through the interview process:

His answers. His preparation. How well it went.

He was proud. And he totally should be.

Funnily enough, I happened to know the hiring manager.

So next time we grabbed a coffee I asked him about this process.

What he told me, I never shared with my client.

Greg wasn't superb or anything.

Turns out the two candidates before him had been completely terrible. They sucked as hell.

One was arrogant. One had completely misread what the job actually was.

By the time Greg walked in, the bar had been dragged so low that "competent and normal" felt like a revelation.

He got the job. Not because he was the best person for it.

Because of when he showed up.

------------------------------------

I never told him this.

But I knew exactly what had happened because I'd been on the other side of it.

Working with clients over the years, I'd watched the first candidate walk in and quietly set the ceiling for everyone who followed.

Not intentionally. Just by existing first.

I'd caught myself doing it too - comparing candidate two to candidate one instead of to the role.

It's almost automatic.

And before you are able to react to that you first have to notice this is happening

But to do the noticing you have to be aware this phenomenon exists in the first place.

Most people are not aware.

Here's what's actually happening in hiring that nobody talks about:

The first candidate sets the bar.

Everyone after gets compared to them, not to the job description.

If the first person was mediocre, the second looks great.

If they were brilliant, you're already fighting uphill.

This is anchoring effect in practice.

Timing your interview matters more than you think.

A study on parole judges found that favorable decisions peaked right at the start of the day and right after breaks, then dropped sharply as the session went on.

When people are mentally depleted, they default to the safe, easy answer.

In hiring, the safe answer is usually: no.

Because, contrary to popular belief, hiring is as much about finding a right person as about avoiding to hire the wrong one.

So naturally, recruiters and hiring managers are risk averse.
(this is one of those reasons why when you are a career switcher you're an instant red flag.)

"Culture fit" often means "reminded me of myself."

When a hiring manager says someone just felt right, that's usually the affinity bias at work.

And to nerd out for a second, let me tell you that affinity bias is the unconscious tendency to:

1) gravitate toward,
2) trust,
3) and favor people

who share similar backgrounds, experiences, interests, or physical appearances.

Simply put: they're matching the person to whoever came to mind most easily.

And who comes to mind the easiest?

Themselves, Little Pineapple. Themselves from couple of years back.

How you frame your experience changes everything.

"I managed a team of 5" lands differently than "I built a team from scratch and grew it to 5 people."

Same fact.

Completely different feeling.

Autopilot is your enemy. But one detail can break it.

I once ran a hiring process for an accountant.

I don't remember most of the candidates.

But I still remember one CV not because it was the best, but because her hobby was competitive archery.

Pretty unusual hobby in general, but my stereotype-alert was in awe when it saw "archery" on the accountant CV.

Of course, right now I don't remember this person name or anything else from their CV from that matter.

But back then, when I was running this process, this candidate was on the top of my mind.

Because they shared something unusual and unexpected. Like it or not, we all are primed to pay more attention to unusual and unexpected.

None of this means the process is broken beyond repair.

It means you can work with it.

1) Ask for a morning slot. You want to be there when decisions are still fresh.

2) Work on how you frame things. Not spin. Signal. There's a difference.

3) And find that one specific detail about yourself that connects to who you are. Not what you've done. Who you are.

My client still deserved his job.

He's thriving.

But he got in the door for a different reason than he thinks.

Honestly, I think most of us did.

You know this now. That's already more than most people walking into that room.

You got this, Little Pineapple,
Patryk
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PS
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​If you're reading this, something's already on your mind.

Maybe it's a move you've been putting off.

A salary conversation you keep avoiding.

A role that doesn't feel right anymore but pays the bills.

Whatever it is that's exactly what I work on - so see how we can work.