# Optimizing Hiring Funnels Against Groupthink Bias

**Podcast:** All Things Product with Teresa and Petra
**Published:** 2026-02-03

## Transcript

Hi, folks.
This is All Things Product with Petra Wille.
And Teresa, of course.
And we're so happy you're here.
Hi, Petra.
I know a ton of people are looking for jobs right now.
I also know it's really tough out there.
Every day we're seeing headlines still about layoffs and about companies announcing their headcount is going to stay stable.
There's a few things I want to dig into in this topic, but I'm going to start by tell me what you're seeing out there.
Similar things.
So a lot of layoffs here in Europe as well.
A lot of big corporates, people coming from corporate backgrounds, having worked there forever, basically.
Now for the first time in years, looking for a job, being in this application processes.
I see a lot of organizations being massively overwhelmed with the number of applications that they're getting.
And AI application tools don't improve that process, actually.
So a lot of my leadership coaches say like, oh, my God, I put the job ad online for like 10 minutes and had like 800 applications.
How could that be?
We figured that that is with the help of AI tools that applicants are actually using.
Some are good, some are.
And then I see because of this massive numbers and applications, the actual application process becoming longer, more rounds.
Companies have this kind of a bit of fear of missing out.
So let's interview 20 candidates or something like that, where they would have invited three people a few years back.
So I see more people in.
the application funnel, I'd say.
More steps, more interviews in the application funnel.
And then just recently, I saw, for example, several cases, and that's maybe something that we could unpack, where actually the conversations with the team were very late in the process and killed the entire applicant funnel, and I think due to groupthink.
So I had the conversation with one of my coaches where that happened.
So he was already really confident about a candidate.
They made it through all the burning hoops and this interview and that interview and the case here and the case there.
And then he thought it's just a lunch with the team away that he can basically send out a contract.
But then some things went sideways and the team didn't like how the person behaved in this casual lunch thing.
And the team really asked critical questions and wanted to know plenty of things about this one product person.
And it actually killed the entire process.
Team was like, no, that's not the right product person for us, which leads me to questioning.
If teams should have the last say in hiring somebody or if it's more a veto situation, that should be there.
And another thing that I would like to hear your opinion upon, I know all of us have stopped doing focus groups in product discovery for a reason because we all saw it firsthand how groupthink kicks in and how it gets you bad results when doing product discovery.
And I think a similar thing happens if you let six engineers interview one product person or one design person or even one junior engineer, right?
So there is groupthink involved.
So I'm wondering if that is the right approach in this entire hiring funnel.
Thoughts, Teresa?
What are you seeing?
Yeah, let me make sure I understand what you saw.
And I think you saw this in more than one instance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Several cases.
People made it through the like formal interview process.
They talked to multiple people.
Whatever the process of like product sense and whatever stupid things people are looking for in their interviews.
Cases, cases, a lot of cases.
Cases, homework, whatever.
Yes, I'm a fan of good cases.
They jumped all the way through all the hoops.
And then their last step, they were told their last step was to have lunch with the team.
And it was lunch with the team that led to them not getting an offer.
Yeah, and in two cases, it's people that I'm working with, product leads that were basically baffled that this happened because they thought like it's just like the end of the process.
And in one other case, it's more anecdotal that I heard about it, but it was a similar case where it really was like, okay, it's just like this last, it's a casual meet the team, meet and greet with the team.
And I think it's where groupthink is kicking in and then sometimes derailing your entire process.
And for the coaches of mine, we unpacked how expensive it is to go through the entire process.
to interview all these people, to look at their cases, to really like them.
And already as a leadership person, right, you fall in love with them already.
And you're like, you picture yourself loading work on this new person and it's kind of not longer on your calendar and stuff like that.
And then something like a team lunch or team coffee or whatever the companies are calling it gets kills the entire process.
Yeah.
So this brings up a few things for me.
I think what's hard about hiring is the way companies intuitively think about it is a bunch of people should be involved in the interview process and everybody gets a veto.
And I think what that sets up is you're never going to hire anybody.
Yeah.
Like there's no perfect human.
Not every single, first of all, not every single person in your company likes every other person in your company today.
Right?
So like this is the wrong criteria.
There's a book that I really love about hiring.
It's called Who?
the A method for hiring.
I think I got that title right.
And what it talks about is this idea of like, you should have multiple people in the hiring process.
They should be evaluating the candidate on different criteria.
So the first step is before you write a job listing, you need to get really clear on who are you trying to hire.
And then you need to define metrics for how you're going to evaluate.
Is this the right person?
And then you define design evaluation criteria for each metric.
And then you give each person one section, right?
And so they're going into their interview with the goal of looking at a very small set of things.
Because I think what you're seeing is possible.
I mean, without information from either the candidate or the company, it's impossible to know.
But like what it kind of sounds like is this cultural fit.
uh, criteria, which I think is really just a euphemism for stereotypes and bias.
And I'm going to hire people like me only, you know, whereas I think like, it's really easy to be like, Oh, Petra's a little weird.
I don't think we should hire her.
Yeah.
So instead of saying, instead of saying we value ingenuity, we're going to measure ingenuity this way.
We value curiosity.
We're going to measure curiosity this way.
And like, I see this a lot with companies are starting to look for like with product managers.
Do you vibe code and have you built things?
Okay.
If the goal, what you're looking for is, are you curious?
Do you have agency?
Are you keeping up on current trends?
Vibe coding is one way to test those things.
Yeah, exactly.
But what if I've never vibe coded, but I've nerded out with cloud code?
Or what if I've never vibe coded, but I have the most sophisticated use of projects?
Jet GPT, project setup.
Yeah.
So I think like what I like about this book is it gets you to think about evaluating the candidate the same way you would evaluate a product.
Yeah, we did.
In one case, we did a postmortem.
So I did.
That's what we did in a coaching session.
And I said, like, OK, can we just like do a postmortem on what really happened and what went sideways?
And one thing that we figured out that.
could be improved next time is a proper briefing to the team.
Yeah.
Because there was even no, it was like half the session with your new product person.
So what the team did is, and that's, that's, it's assumptions because the product leadership person has not yet talked to the team prior to our session.
But it's an assumption that the team just thought about is this.
Can I work with that person?
Would I like to work with that person more than anything else?
Right.
And then there was one comment or two from one of the engineers and that led to the group think dynamic.
And then everybody was like, yeah, maybe I don't know.
And so it went right down the drain.
It went.
So, yeah, I totally agree with this.
It does make sense to do a chemistry check to some extent.
And it does make sense to involve more people.
But if we want to do a chemistry check, then what is the chemistry that you're checking for?
So what are the elements on your table?
Here's the thing.
Like, let's say I love to debate and the people that I like are rigorous debaters.
And we have lunch and a controversial topic comes up and I want to debate and you don't take the bite.
Is that a reason for us not to hire you?
I don't think so.
Right?
Like, if I'm an extrovert and I want to like have a...
uh, roaring conversation with the eight people at the table and you're an introvert and you want to just talk to the person next to you.
Does that mean we shouldn't hire you?
Like, this is why it's really critical that we define these clear metrics to start with.
And we define our evaluation criteria for those metrics because it's really easy.
Like all humans do this.
We like people that are like us, but we don't want a company of people like us.
And here's the thing.
It is your job to work with people you don't like.
It's your job to work with people that work differently from you.
Like, it's not that we all get to be best friends.
And it's oftentimes in the company's best interest to have really diverse teams, right?
We know that diversity does bring a lot to the table.
So, yeah.
And just to the people listening right now that are in all these processes, it sometimes does help to ask if there is clear criteria how you are.
getting assessed or something like that, that helps you to understand how sophisticated the process is.
And maybe that's not appropriate.
And just maybe one thing to say is like, rest assured, some companies just don't have the application processes figured out.
So ideally, they have these criteria.
ideally they use any assessment that one could have out there to assess you properly.
For example, my product management wheel or something like that, whatever you use to see if you have the necessary skills and the necessary competencies and all these kinds of things and the necessary personality traits.
I think that's another important thing to check for, right?
The right values maybe in line with the company values, the team culture, all of that.
But even if you say team culture, What are the dimensions of your team culture?
And not all companies have that figured out.
Not all product leaders have that figured out.
So if you get stuck in such a process for that reason, it's not always you.
Yeah.
Okay.
So let's zoom out a little bit.
I think if you're looking for a job right now, it is genuinely hard.
Like maybe harder than it's been since the 08 recession.
Maybe harder than the 08 recession.
Like it's genuinely hard.
I'm not sure it's going to get better anytime soon, which is really a tough thing.
So there's a resource I want to share with you.
If you're looking for a job, I recommend you pick up a copy of the book, Never Search Alone.
And I recommend that you join a Never Search Alone council.
The councils are completely free.
This is a volunteer run organization.
The idea is building a community of people to support each other as they're looking for a job.
Because I think the emotional toll and like just the amount of work that is required and just how much of like a head game it is, it's really important that you find some peers and that you get support.
And there's a lot of, I mean, the book is probably a $10 or $20 book and the councils are completely free.
So I do recommend you check that out.
And we'll put links to both in the show notes.
Yeah, amazing tip.
And then maybe I hope he continues his work, but Scott Baldwin started to collect interesting open PM positions and posting them on LinkedIn constantly.
So we make sure to put that in and he does it.
Basically, it's his side project right now.
And he has a really good network.
So I think it does make sense to give him a follow as well.
I hope he continues to do this by the time this airs.
This is still up.
We make sure that we include that as well.
Yeah, perfect.
Any other last thoughts on hiring and the challenges?
There's so many things still to unpack.
But I think for today, that's it, I'd say.
All right.
Thanks, Petra.
Thanks, Teresa.