Your biggest interview competition isn’t another applicant, and AI sales reps are replacing $100k salaries for $20/mo…

Two things not on my 2026 bingo card if I’m being honest.

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Inspired by a super insightful tweet shared by BowtiedCocoon, as well as our own hiring experiences.

They don't work there anymore. But they're the reason the hiring manager pauses when you say certain things, pushes harder on certain questions, and reads into moments you didn't think anyone was picking up on.

The last bad hire. Every interview since has been filtered through that experience.

Most candidates don't think about this. They prep answers, rehearse stories, try to hit the right keywords, and walk out hoping they were likable enough.

Unfortunately, that's not how things work.

The actual game in early rounds

Here's something that doesn't get said enough: a lot of hiring, especially in early rounds, is just about elimination.

It's not that hiring managers are trying to find the best person from the jump. It's that finding the best person among all possible options at once is nearly impossible. So instead, they look for reasons to narrow the field. They're looking for the exit ramp. A reason to move on.

This is true at every level, but it's especially true for early-stage roles. The bar isn't "impress me." The bar is "don't give me a reason to say no."

Job hopping. Vague answers. A defensive response to a straightforward question. Hiding from a red flag you think they didn't catch.

They always catch it.

The candidates who advance aren't always the most impressive in the room. They're the ones who gave the manager the fewest clean reasons to eliminate them.

Which brings us back to that last bad hire…

The fear is that you're the next mistake, not that you’re simply “unqualified”.

That last hire cost them a quarter. Six months of performance conversations. An uncomfortable meeting with their VP. They're not doing that again.

So every question you get is shaped by that. Every answer you give is being run through the same filter: could this go wrong?

Your resume got you in the room. That's it. From the moment you sit down, they're watching how you carry yourself, what you notice, and what you ask. They've passed on people with better resumes than yours. They've hired people with worse ones.

The difference was almost never the paper.

How to flip the dynamic

Most candidates hide from their red flags and hope the hiring manager doesn't notice. What actually works is the opposite: surface them yourself, with context.

It signals self-awareness. And self-awareness is the one thing they know they can't train.

From there, ask questions that change what the conversation is about. Ask the hiring manager what someone in this role could do to actually help advance their career, not just hit quota. Nobody asks that. Ask how they'd set up their next hire to win in the first 90 days. Now they're thinking through onboarding, not running a scorecard on you.

Before you leave, ask for the real objection.

"Based on what you've seen so far, where would you still need more conviction before moving me forward?"

Most people leave hoping they were liked. That question asks the manager to say the quiet part out loud. And even if you don't fully resolve it in the room, you've just shown them the one thing that's hardest to fake: someone willing to lean into the friction instead of run from it.