When the metric improves… but the outcome doesn’t follow
In most hiring processes, there’s usually one or two thing that gets the focus. That could be:
Time-to-hire.
Cost per hire.
Number of CVs.
All useful in their own way. All easy to track.
The challenge is what happens when improving one of those becomes the goal on its own.
Because that’s often where the process starts to shift in ways that aren’t always obvious at the time.
The cobra effect
There’s a concept known as the “cobra effect”.
It comes from a real situation where a bounty was introduced to reduce the number of cobras in a city. Instead of solving the problem, it created a new one. People started breeding cobras to claim the reward.
The metric improved, at least on paper.
But the underlying problem didn’t.
How this shows up in hiring
Take time-to-hire as an example.
It’s a useful metric. It highlights delays. It helps teams understand how quickly roles are being filled.
But when it becomes the main focus, behaviour starts to change around it.
Processes get tightened.
Stages get reduced.
Decisions happen faster.
Which can improve the number.
But not always the outcome.
Metrics vs outcomes
The difference is this:
A metric tells you what happened.
An outcome tells you whether it worked.
You can reduce time-to-hire and still end up with:
- hires that don’t settle
- roles that need to be re-hired
- teams that feel the impact later
That’s where the tension sits.
Not between speed and quality, but between what’s being measured and what actually matters.
What this means in practice
This doesn’t mean speed isn’t important.
In most cases, it is.
But on its own, it’s not enough.
What matters more is how speed is linked to whether the hire actually works.
That’s where small changes in how a process is measured and run can make a big difference.
A more balanced way to approach it
The guide below pulls together a few of the things that tend to help in practice.
Not by slowing hiring down.
But by making sure that when things move quickly, they still lead to the right outcome.
If you’re reviewing your own hiring process at the moment, it’s worth stepping back and asking:
Where are we improving speed…
and where are we improving decisions?