Hire’s remorse is that moment - sometimes minutes into Day One, sometimes a few weeks in - when a new employee thinks, “This isn't what I expected... at all.”

You may have seen it happen, or even experienced it yourself. The "new job excitement" can change quickly if someone's surprised by their working hours, team culture, workload, or all of the above (and more).

In this week’s video, I explain what hire’s remorse is and how to set up your hiring process to not just “win” candidates, but accurately prepare them.

In the video, I walk through how to use the Pause-Consider-Act framework from my new book The Manager Method in hiring. In this blog, I'll build on that and focus specifically on how to use the framework to be honest with candidates - and how to rethink the elements of a role that would scare anyone away.

Because getting the right candidate who stays starts with being honest about the job.

The Real Issue: Marketing the Job Instead of Describing It

Most hiring processes unintentionally turn into marketing campaigns. We polish the job description, highlight the most exciting aspects of the role and focus on the good parts. Those good parts may all be true. But if the role also includes long hours during certain seasons, tension with another department, high ambiguity, a steep learning curve or limited flexibility in the first few months, and you don’t address those proactively, you can create surprise.

And surprise in employment often turns into regret.

Hire’s remorse isn’t usually about a bad hire. It’s about a gap between expectation and reality.

Using Pause-Consider-Act in Hiring

Pause: Are We Selling or Are We Aligning?

Pausing in hiring means stepping back before you post the role or conduct the interview, and asking whether you’re describing the job as it actually exists today (and will tomorrow).

Are you using an old job description that doesn’t reflect how the role has evolved? Or glossing over pain points because we’re worried strong candidates won’t accept the offer? Are you framing intense workloads or strained collaboration as “fast-paced” or “dynamic” without clarifying what that really means?

The pause forces honesty. If the role requires 50-hour weeks during a quarterly push, that’s not negativity - it’s information. If cross-functional collaboration has historically felt like “us versus them,” that’s not disloyal to admit - it’s important context.

The goal of the pause isn’t to criticize the job. It’s to describe it accurately.

Consider: What Would I Want to Know?

Consider the real human on the other side of the interview process, and imagine it was you. That means remembering that many candidates are leaving stable roles. They're weighing risk. They're wondering what the job is really like, and making decisions with the best information they can.

But most candidates won’t ask direct questions like:

- “What parts of the job feel hardest?”

- “What frustrates people here?”

- “What surprised your current team members for better or worse?”

There's a power dynamic that's skewed against candidates. Even once someone's hired, asking questions as an employee can feel uncomfortable. During the interview process, that dynamic is even stronger.

So instead of waiting for candidates to ask, "considering" means sharing key information forward yourself.

For example, you might say:

“I want to give you a realistic picture of this role. There are two times a year when the workload increases significantly. During those periods, the team typically works longer days for about four to six weeks. I want to be transparent about that so you can think through whether that's something you're okay with.”

Or:

“You’ll collaborate closely with our operations team. Historically, that relationship has felt tense at times because we haven't worked together like we should have. Our teams are actively working on improving that, but I want you to know what it's been like so far, and how we actually address things.”

That's not negative hiring. That is respectful hiring.

Act: If It Would Drive Everyone Out the Door, Rethink It

If there’s something that would drive every candidate out the door, it’s worth rethinking. This is where the framework becomes more than communication - it becomes leadership.

There’s a difference between acknowledging that a job is challenging and allowing a role to be unsustainable.

If candidates are always expected to respond to work emails, that may not just be something to disclose - it may be something to redesign. If collaboration consistently feels combative, that may not just be a “personality issue” - it may be a communication or personnel issue that needs to be addressed at a leadership level.

Acting means asking:

- Do we truly need to operate this way?

- Can we make the role both high-performing and sustainable?

- Can we reset our working relationship with another department?

Sometimes the right action is giving transparency to candidates. And sometimes it's recognizing that something needs to change for everyone.

What Honest Hiring Actually Sounds Like

Honest hiring doesn't need to sound dramatic or apologetic, but candid and specific.

For example:

“This role has a steep learning curve in the first 90 days. New team members can feel overwhelmed in month one, but you're not on your own, and it gets easier. We have a structured check-in process to support you.”

Or:

“This position has a lot of autonomy, but that also means ambiguity. You won’t always have a playbook, and we'll look to you to create structure where it hasn't existed.”

When you communicate this way, candidates can make informed decisions. They can self-select in or out. And if they accept the role, they begin with understanding instead of confusion.

The goal of hiring isn't simply to get an accepted offer. It's creating sustainable success. That means someone joins your team understanding both the rewarding and the demanding aspects of the role.

Hire’s remorse is rarely about intentional deception. It’s more often about what happens when we start thinking of hiring as “closing the candidate.” It's easy to gloss over challenges, or describe the role in its best light instead of its real light.