“You’ll Just Know”: The Hiring Myths That Made Me Start Rewired

The Weirdest Hiring Advice I’ve Ever Heard (and Why I Started Rewired)

Blog number four. Four months into running Rewired.

Still here. Still standing. Still drinking too much coffee (and wine) and occasionally wondering if I should’ve opened a dog café instead. (Spoiler: I shouldn’t. Clyde would unionise.)

Running a new business is no small thing — especially when you’re trying to challenge some of the most deeply embedded habits in hiring. But what keeps me going is this: every week, I see organisations that want to do things better — they just don’t always know how.

That’s why I started Rewired. Because I’d spent years watching brilliant people get overlooked, while the same old hiring myths kept being passed around like dodgy leftovers in a staff fridge.

So this blog is a slightly tongue-in-cheek look at the weirdest hiring advice I’ve ever heard — and why I’ve spent the last four months (and many years before that) trying to rewire the way we hire.

1. “Hire someone you’d go for a pint with.”
Because nothing screams “great decision-making” like lager-based logic.
I’ve heard this so many times, and it’s almost always delivered with a knowing nod — as if hiring someone who feels familiar is the same as hiring someone who’s right for the job.

Why I rewired that thinking:
Hiring for comfort kills diversity. You don’t need a twin — you need someone who brings what the team’s missing. (And maybe prefers herbal tea/gin)

2. “You’ll know when they walk in.”
Great — let’s just cancel the interview and go with a strong aura reading. This advice is basically: ignore all the evidence, and go with your feelings. Feelings which, by the way, are heavily influenced by bias, mood, and whether your last meeting ran over.

Why I rewired that thinking:
Because “just knowing” is often “just hiring the person who reminds you of yourself.” I’d rather use evidence. Structure. Clarity. Wild, I know.

3. “Make them work for it — see how much they want it.”
Translation: Create a labyrinth of unpaid tasks, last-minute reschedules, and surprise panels — and call it a ‘robust’ process.
If someone sticks it out, they must really want the job… or they’ve just got an unusually high pain threshold.

Why I rewired that thinking:
Because great candidates don’t hang around waiting to be tested to destruction. They’re weighing up how you show up too.

4. “Career gap? Hmmm…”
Hmmm indeed. Let’s immediately distrust anyone who took a break to raise kids, recover, study, or survive a pandemic.
This kind of suspicion says more about your process than the person’s potential.

Why I rewired that thinking:
Because gaps are just part of life. And some of the most grounded, motivated, brilliant people I’ve met are the ones with “unexplained” spaces on their CV.

The bottom line?
I started Rewired because I got tired of seeing good hiring blocked by bad advice. The kind that’s passed down like folklore — unchallenged, outdated, and quietly damaging.

So here’s to saying no to pub logic and yes to thoughtful, fair, human hiring.
Because weird advice belongs in group chats and dodgy self-help books — not in your recruitment strategy.

Want to talk about rewiring your hiring?
Get in touch. I promise not to ask if you’d go for a pint with your candidates.

#InclusiveHiring #FairRecruitment #ModernHiring #RewiredThinking #HRHumour #HiringAdvice #WorkplaceMyths