Why “We Just Need More People” Is Usually the Wrong Answer
The number of CEOs who tell me, “We just need more people,” right before admitting they’ve already hired (and lost) three in the last six months… honestly, it’s staggering.
And yet, it’s not surprising.
Because when the pressure is on, growth feels slow, delivery is strained and your team is stretched… hiring becomes the go-to antidote. The instinctive answer. The business equivalent of running into A&E and shouting, “Someone fix this!”
But here’s the truth:
Recruitment isn’t the emergency department of business growth.
It’s the foundations of your future success.
Most companies don’t have a hiring problem, they have a strategic design problem. They hire to stop the bleeding rather than to build the future.
Let’s break down the difference.
Firefighting Hires vs. Strategic Hires
Firefighting hires
These are made fast, under pressure, and with a touch of hope as the main selection tool. You’re filling a gap because something feels urgent. A client’s shouting, a system’s failing, or the founder is working 16-hour days.
It’s understandable. But it’s also expensive.
Firefighting hires often:
Repeat the same mistakes
Don’t solve the root problem
Add chaos instead of capacity
Need replacing within months
Strategic hires
Completely different mindset.
Rather than fixing today’s fire, a strategic hire strengthens the business for tomorrow.
They:
Elevate capability
Reduce founder dependency
Improve culture, not just workload
Build momentum rather than plugging holes
Strategic hires are how companies scale, not survive.
How We Build Strategic Teams (Instead of Throwing People at Problems)
This is the process I use with my clients and why their teams stick, perform and grow.
✨ 1. Assess your current team to reveal the real gaps
Most CEOs can describe the symptoms, but not the cause. We audit roles, responsibilities, strengths and bottlenecks so the actual gap becomes visible.
Often, the role they think they need isn’t the one they truly need.
✨ 2. Design roles for where the business is going
Hiring for today’s fires builds a reactive business.
Hiring for the next 12–36 months builds a resilient one.
We design roles based on:
The future vision
Planned products or services
Scaling requirements
Leadership structure
It’s forward-thinking team architecture, not panic buying.
✨ 3. Use personality + skills profiling
Culture fit isn’t fluff.
Capability alignment isn’t optional.
Profiling allows us to select people who communicate well, handle pressure in a way the team can work with, and actually enhance operations rather than disrupt them.
✨ 4. Deliver a 30-day onboarding plan
Because hiring the right person is only half the work, keeping them is the other half.
A structured onboarding plan means:
Day 1 feels clear
Week 1 feels supported
Month 1 builds confidence and traction
This is how you create retention, loyalty and performance early on.
This Isn’t a “Find Someone Fast” Fix
It’s a build-the-right-team-once solution.
Most businesses don’t need more bodies.
They need the right structure, the right roles and the right people... in that order.
And every single time a CEO pauses, breathes and hires strategically… they scale faster. The team becomes lighter. The founder becomes freer. The business becomes stronger.
Your Turn
What’s your biggest hiring regret and what did it teach you?
