We hired 4 people. 2 were mistakes.

We made 4 hires between September and January. Two worked out. Two did not. Here is the honest breakdown of what we got wrong.

Hire 1 — Senior engineer, referred by a friend. Worked out. Still with us. The referral was based on actual past work, not a resume.

Hire 2 — Growth marketer, hired from a job post. Did not work out. Left after 4 months. We had hired for "growth" without defining what growth meant for us at that stage. They ran paid campaigns. We needed content and community. Wrong person for the actual job, and that was our fault for not knowing what we needed.

Hire 3 — Customer support, promoted from within. Worked out. Knew the product, knew the users, needed no onboarding.

Hire 4 — Product designer, hired from a portfolio. Did not work out. Beautiful portfolio, but every project was a 6-month greenfield effort with a large team. We needed someone who could ship in a week with no design system and no research budget. The portfolio didn't show that because that work doesn't go in portfolios.

Cost of the two bad hires: roughly $38,000 in salary, plus 5 months of slowed execution.

The pattern: every hire we made based on a signal we could verify (past work together, internal track record) worked.

Every hire based on a signal we could only admire (portfolio, resume, interview) was a coin flip.

What signal do you trust most when hiring, and has it ever failed you?