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Teams are being asked to do more with less. Hiring is rebounding, but recruiting teams aren’t. So let’s talk about what that actually looks like in practice—and how I solved for it through something I call self-serve hiring.

You agree on the forecast. Finance locks in the budget. Talent starts to staff against the plan. And then? Sales closes a category-defining customer. Product promises a shiny new feature. Ops says yes to covering the gaps. Suddenly, you’re looking at 50+ unplanned hires that weren’t in the annual plan — and everyone’s wondering why recruiting is “so slow.”

Here’s the problem: hiring without defining the problems to solve is like buying gym equipment because it “looks useful.” You’ll spend a lot of money, use it twice, and wonder why nothing changed. Here's how to define the problem before you even post the job.

“I hired a recruiter, but the recruiting problems still exist. We’re thinking of hiring another recruiter to support, but I want to figure out the problem first.” Here’s the trap I see over and over: hire a recruiter = problem solved. But if you and your recruiter aren’t calibrated, even 100 recruiters on one role won’t fix it. Going from 100% founder-led recruiting to hiring your first in-house recruiter doesn’t mean you’re now hands-off. Most often, the problem isn’t the recruiter. It’s diagnosis.

A new leader joins. Within two weeks, they send me LinkedIn profiles of people they want to hire — usually folks they’ve worked with before. Or they drop a request for 10+ headcount and a shiny new org design that hasn’t been vetted yet. On paper, it looks like momentum. In practice, it’s often the start of a spiral.

Founders are taught to think in first principles. Otherwise, why are you even building? So why not bring that same rigor to talent? Hiring is the single most expensive bet you’ll make. Get it wrong early, and it can drag your bottom line — or your culture — into a spiral you don’t recover from.