Owning the Miss and Earning the Win: A Real Lesson in Tech Hiring Alignment

In tech hiring, failed placements are usually blamed on talent. The candidate wasn’t the right fit. The interviews didn’t go deep enough. Someone looked good on paper but couldn’t deliver.

That explanation is easy—and often wrong.

More often, hiring failures trace back to misalignment long before the first résumé is reviewed. When budget, expectations, and access to decision-makers don’t match the reality of the role, even well-vetted candidates can fail fast.

The story below walks through a real GTN engagement that didn’t go as planned, what we did instead of hiding from it, and how direct alignment with leadership turned a missed placement into a decisive hiring win—in less than a week.

Originally posted to Linkedin 12/17/25 by Eric Lambert, 

Owning the Miss — and Earning the Win!

Let’s talk about a search that went sideways.

 

When we kicked off this engagement, we raised two flags: we needed direct access to the hiring leader to ensure alignment, and the budget was too rigid for the level of ownership required. We were rebuked and told to follow the “standard process.”

 

So, we did.

 

Both our team and the client put the initial candidates through an extensive screening and interview process. We vetted for technical depth; they vetted for culture and delivery. On paper and in person, the hires were solid.

 

Then, reality hit.

 

Placement #1: Fired.
Placement #2: Quit by lunch on Monday.

 

Two qualified people, vetted extensively by both sides, failed for separate reasons that had everything to do with a lack of upfront alignment.

 

Instead of hiding, we went straight to the CTO. We didn’t defend the failures; we diagnosed them. We told him the truth: our collective vetting worked, but the environment and budget didn’t match the talent they actually needed.

 

This time, he leaned in. He increased the bill rate, removed the communication layers, and said, “Let’s deal directly.”

 

Six business days later, we presented four standout candidates. The client was so impressed by the caliber of all four that they struggled to choose—but they picked the “One” and had her start immediately on the year-long project.

 

The Takeaway:

 

Rigorous interviewing is only half the battle. If you don’t have alignment on budget and expectations—and the ability to speak directly to the vision—you’re just vetting people for a role that doesn’t exist.

GTN Perspective

At GTN, we don’t believe recruiting success is about perfect résumés or endless interview loops. It’s about alignment—between leadership, budget, expectations, and the reality of the work.

When placements miss, we own it. When assumptions are wrong, we surface them early. And when clients are willing to remove friction and engage directly, the results tend to follow quickly.

Hiring works best when everyone is solving the same problem—not just following the same process.