[azanar]

A candidate who is at an elevated risk of being replaced by severance, which is a position most new hires are in, is probably putting their aspirations on hold while you figure out if they are the right fit. Severance is typically enough to keep an employee above water for a time while they find a new position that fits them better, but it certainly isn't anything people can build dreams on top of.

I think there is a common point of view that wants to assume that recruiting a good fit is something that you determine based on a set of input, and then commit to. If you have to reassess at a later time, and especially if you have to reverse your decision, you've failed at recruiting, and in a way that is preventable in a deterministic way. Experience suggests that people who believe this do one of two things: either they attach an ethical weight to the employee/employer relationship that means you have to weight the cost to your business against the cost to your sense of self-worth; or, they have gotten lucky enough up to this point to meet/interview/hire people who have not misrepresented themselves or otherwise projected an image that they would be much more valuable than they proved to be.

Having been involved in a number of instances in the last two years that have exposed me to the randomness of recruitment and hiring, even using all of the hacks people use to remove the error, I'm honestly a little surprised that people can have any imperatives about recruitment. The whole things seems at best stochastic, and errors are unpreventable.

I think the reason why people are so reluctant to man up is because it means they failed at something we believe they shouldn't fail at. I would argue they've failed as something we all fail at, and that accepting that will make the whole process better for everyone.