Sixty years of combined recruitment experience and observing population tendencies in hiring situations have made us students of behavioural psychology.  We’ve learned that understanding and leveraging the profit motive is key to gaining a competitive edge and avoiding hiring mistakes.

The Profit Motive “The world runs on individuals pursuing their self-interests” Milton Friedman

Long before the invention of money, profit was central to every transaction. This fundamental drive remains unchanged — whether it’s a company looking to fill a key role or a candidate considering a career move. we are all motivated to act out of self-interest, whether for ourselves or our tribes.

The Profit Motive in Action

Companies focus on their business needs, hiring managers prioritise their own goals and those of the company, while the potential job seeker is driven by their personal career aspirations.

The profit motive creates a blind spot, causing many companies to unknowingly miss out on high performing mastery-level talent – especially for leadership and key hires. They rely on the same Sisyphean job description format used for volume and IC roles – describing their ideal candidate – instead of describing their ideal candidate’s ideal role. 

Sisyphean Job Descriptions

These job descriptions typically outline the role using lists of responsibilities, tasks, and necessary experience – what the company requires – but fail to convey what the role offers in terms of scope, scale, and impact.  Lacking essential elements such as context, autonomy, progress, and a clear sense of accomplishment – they inform but do not attract – there is no profit in these lists for ‘mastery-level’ job seekers who aren’t in distress.

The Talent Pool – Motivation to Act

The profit motive drives one of two actions –  we act to gain a benefit or avoid a loss. The talent pool is driven by self-interest and made up of two types of candidates:

• Active candidates – are generally in a weak position, unhappy with their jobs, making tactical career moves, often applying out of necessity rather than genuine interest in the opportunity.
• Passive candidates – those in a strong position, not dissatisfied but seeking growth and new challenges – who only make strategic career decisions.

Job Applicant Characteristics

In any potential transaction, the first question from a party in a strong position is always: ‘What’s in it for me? (WIIFM)

• Active candidates don’t need to ask this question, they’re in a weak position and apply to Sisyphean job descriptions because they still profit by leaving their current role – even if the job fit isn’t perfect, it offers relief – their career decisions are often driven by external motivations and immediate needs, rather than career growth.
• Passive candidates, however, don’t apply for these job descriptions – they have too much to lose from a career misstep and only move when the role represents their ideal fit.

Passive Candidate Cost-Benefit Analysis

Though they often receive the same job alerts as active candidates, passive candidates rarely apply and tend to ignore messages that lack WIIFM (what’s in it or me).

High performers face substantial costs when considering a job change: an upfront, non-refundable investment of time and emotional energy during the interview process, followed by the disruption of leaving a stable, successful environment, a trusted network of colleagues who respect their accomplishments, and the further challenge of having to prove themselves all over again.

So, they evaluate job descriptions through a cost-benefit lens, asking themselves, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

Sisyphean job descriptions and LinkedIn outreach messages make it impossible for high performing passive candidates to assess whether the role they are reviewing is better or worse than their current job. They cannot see how they will profit from a move. As a result, they often do nothing — hence the passive label.

Talent Acquisition Teams

Talent teams are highly efficient hiring engines, delivering cost-effective results for volume recruitment. As technology has advanced, the focus has shifted to measurable metrics—data and KPIs. Constantly pressed for time and juggling multiple priorities, low-volume, high-impact roles present a significant problem – they lack both the time and incentive to make 65 calls just to generate one top-tier candidate – they are measured on quantity rather than quality of candidates. Their LinkedIn outreach messages always mirror those Sisyphean job descriptions – stating what the role requires instead of what it offers. Message sequencing tools enhance scalability, enabling talent teams to brute force message a sizeable pool of potential candidates, leading to enough responses to create the impression of a viable candidate pool.  Meanwhile, theirs and a plethora of other similar Sisyphean based messages from other peer companies are all competing for the time of busy high performers who do not respond to messages that lack WIIFM.

The Result

An influx of active candidates responding to Sisyphean messages out of necessity rather than genuine interest in the opportunity – all making tactical not strategic career decisions – choosing the quickest available option rather than the best long-term fit. Meanwhile, passive candidates, who could be ideal for the role, ignore these messages and job descriptions because they lack WIIFM (what’s in it for me).

Consumer Behaviour is Universal.

Before making any buying decision – whether it’s buying a car, boat, space trip, holiday, software package, or considering a new job – the process is the same – we mentally ‘try it on’ before committing. Job descriptions that lack a clear WIIFM force passive candidates, already under significant cognitive load from their daily lives, to work too hard to picture themselves in the role. If the opportunity isn’t clear enough, they won’t engage – this is why they ignore most outreach and job descriptions, even if they’re open to new opportunities. Active candidates, on the other hand, don’t face this issue – if they have the required skills and experience, they’re often blinded by the desire to escape their current job.

Short-term Profit Motive

The quickest profit for any company comes from hiring someone already doing the same job at the same level for a competitor – the company and the hiring manager profit because they require minimal support and can hit the ground running. However, the only candidates who accept these ‘lateral transfer’ roles, with no growth (profit margin) are active job seekers in distress. They’ve already taken their profit early by leaving their previous job.

The Impact of Suboptimal Recruitment

When the candidate has taken their profit early, it often- at best – leads to adequate performance due to lack of challenges and professional growth. This may go unnoticed or be deemed acceptable for IC & high-volume roles, but the impact is clear in a key statistic: 33% of new hires leave within 90 days, and at least 50% underperform compared to their interview expectations.

Performance Expectations

Who would you bet on to perform to a higher standard – someone leaving their job out of dissatisfaction, or someone who resigned from a good position for a role that offers a clear career step forward.

Using Sisyphean job descriptions for leadership and key hires encourages the same candidate behaviour as with lower-level roles, but the stakes and consequences are significantly higher.

As former Talent Acquisition leaders, we’ve witnessed first-hand the impact of hiring tactical job seekers for strategic leadership and critical roles. Hiring mistakes that often take a year or more to surface and can set companies back twice as long.