Chris Carmon

The underlying cause may be organizational: growth has outpaced how the business is arranged, too much knowledge or too many decisions sit with a handful of people, leaders are not aligned on what they need, or hiring starts only when a role becomes urgent. The priority is to diagnose what is creating the problem before prescribing a solution.

In the post 'Recruiters love broken companies,' Chris Carmon writes that a company which continually needs outside help to solve the same talent problems may not have a recruiting problem at all, and that open positions may just be the symptom. The posts use everyday analogies—buying more towels when there is water on the floor every morning, or ignoring a check-engine light instead of finding the cause—to make the same point.

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An open role costs lost productivity and revenue; a bad hire costs salary, management time, and replacement; turnover costs recruiting expense, lost knowledge, and another ramp-up period; slow hiring pulls expensive leaders into covering work instead of growing the business. The posts treat the talent process as something CEOs should know as well as sales, operations, and financials.

The Friday post asks CEOs: 'You know your sales process.

• You know your operating process.
• You know your financials.
• How well do you really know your talent process?' It maps each common hiring failure to a cost and closes: 'Talent problems don't stay in HR.
• They hit the P&L.' Another post adds delayed revenue, margin pressure, management distraction, customer impact, and slower execution to the same ledger.

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Recruiting fees are easy to see; consumed leadership capacity is not. The argument moves from fixing the process around one hire to fixing the system every future hire runs through, where the returns compound.

The post lists the compounding gains: less rework, fewer wasted interviews, lower outside recruiting spend, better hiring decisions, more HR capacity, more management time back in the business, and more predictable execution as the company grows.

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Leaders know the people, history, and daily issues, and that proximity can make some problems harder to see.

• Visible symptoms include critical roles open too long, missed revenue because talent cannot be added fast enough, margin pressure from turnover and bad hires, managers spending time recruiting and firefighting, and reactive talent decisions with little visibility into costs.
• Carmon argues that an outside perspective brings objectivity, experience, and expertise.

The post lists the symptoms, then asks what lies beneath them. It closes by saying the outside view brings 'objectivity, experience and expertise to see what the people inside the bottle can't.'

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They now see the dynamic differently: repeated outside help for the same talent problems may point to an undiagnosed internal problem, not a recruiting problem.

• The posts also allow for critical searches, specialized roles, and times when outside expertise and access to talent are exactly what a business needs.
• The argument is against permanent workarounds, not recruiting.

The post describes the shift in Chris Carmon's own view—'the part I see differently today than I did earlier in my career'—and concludes that recruiters should be used intentionally, not as a permanent workaround for undiagnosed problems inside the business.

Chris Carmon says they have made a living for more than 30 years helping companies hire. Their view has changed: earlier in their career, the recruiter's opportunity looked different; now, they argue for diagnosis before the recruiting prescription.

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The post sets up three processes a CEO already watches closely — sales, operations and financials — then asks how well they know the talent process.

• It translates each common hiring failure into money: an open role costs lost productivity and revenue; a bad hire costs salary, management time and replacement; turnover costs recruiting expense, lost knowledge and another ramp-up period; slow hiring pulls expensive leaders into covering work instead of growing the business.
• The closing line is the thesis: talent problems do not stay in HR; they reach the profit and loss statement.

For brands planning a campaign

A recruiting or HR consultancy selling a fractional talent strategist can open with this framing. A short set of questions drawn from the post — who owns the talent process, how is it measured, what does it cost — moves the conversation from an HR contact to the CEO or finance lead.

In one short post, it shows how Chris Carmon argues: analogy first, then the business cost.

Two everyday comparisons — water on the floor every morning and a check-engine light that keeps coming on — make the point that companies treat talent symptoms instead of finding the cause.

• The post sets those against common corporate responses: call another recruiter, replace the person who left, add headcount for overloaded leaders, blame the market for turnover, or assume better people are needed for slow growth.
• It names the costs hidden by treating symptoms — delayed revenue, margin pressure, management distraction, customer impact and slower execution — then asks why talent would be run differently from the rest of the business.

For brands planning a campaign

A short diagnostic checklist adapted from the symptom list could work as a lead magnet, newsletter piece or workshop opener for a partner, with the two analogies as the hook.

Chris Carmon says they heard the phrase “You can't read the label from inside the bottle” and lists symptoms inside a company: growth slowing because critical roles stay open, missed revenue because talent cannot be added fast enough to support the business plan, margins squeezed by turnover and bad hires, managers spending their time recruiting and firefighting, and talent decisions that stay reactive with little visibility into what they cost. The closing argument: an outside perspective brings objectivity and expertise, not greater knowledge of the business than the people inside it.

For brands planning a campaign

This is the “why an outside voice” argument a partner needs. It can anchor a positioning statement about independent diagnosis and pairs with the water-on-the-floor post as a two-part case for a diagnostic engagement.

The post identifies management time as a cost of a broken hiring process that never appears as a separate line item, then shows where that time goes: wrong candidates, extra interviews, searches that restart, managers chasing feedback, and HR plugging the same holes over and over.

• Recruiting fees are easy to see; leadership capacity consumed by a failing talent process is not.
• The argument shifts from fixing one hire at a time to fixing the process across a full year of hiring, where returns compound: less rework, fewer wasted interviews, lower outside recruiting spend, better hiring decisions, more HR capacity, more management time back in the business, and more predictable execution as the company grows.

For brands planning a campaign

Supports selling a retainer or system-improvement engagement rather than per-search fees. The compounding-benefits list can be reused in a proposal, pricing conversation or webinar as measurable outcomes.

It shows where 30 years in recruiting has led Chris Carmon's thinking and clearly states the diagnose-first stance illustrated by the other posts.

Chris Carmon writes from more than 30 years of helping companies hire, arguing that the more reactive a company is, the more open roles it has and the more dependent it becomes on outside recruiting help.

• The post lists what that dependence can hide: growth outpacing the way the business is organised, knowledge or decisions concentrated in a handful of people, leaders who are not aligned on what they need, hiring left until a role becomes urgent, or a business that has simply outgrown how it has always operated.
• The conclusion: recruiters are valuable and needed for critical or specialised searches, but should be used intentionally rather than as a permanent workaround for undiagnosed problems.

For brands planning a campaign

For a partnership with a search or staffing firm, this shows how Chris Carmon can widen the offer from filling roles to diagnosing the talent system. It also sets the tone for a pitch that argues for deliberate use of recruiters, not against them.

One post describes familiar moves—calling another recruiter when a critical role stays open, replacing someone who leaves, adding headcount when leaders are overloaded, and blaming the market for turnover—as expensive ways to treat the symptom. They list what may actually be underneath: growth outpacing how the business is organized, too much knowledge or too many decisions sitting with a handful of people, leaders not aligned on what they need, and hiring that starts only once a role becomes urgent.

Everyday analogies make the point: buying more towels when there is water on the floor every morning, or ignoring a check-engine light instead of finding the cause.

For brands planning a campaign

A partner can build the relationship around a diagnostic first step—a talent-process assessment before any search spend—instead of leading with sourcing capacity.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

In one post, they ask CEOs whether they know their talent process as well as their sales process, operating process, and financials, then map four common events to the P&L: an open role means lost productivity and revenue; a bad hire means salary, management time, and replacement cost; turnover means recruiting expense, lost knowledge, and another ramp-up; slow hiring means expensive leaders covering work instead of growing the business. Another post adds delayed revenue, margin pressure, management distraction, customer impact, and slower execution to the same ledger.

For brands planning a campaign

Cost framing gives a consulting or HR partner shared language with finance-minded buyers. It also supports content that ties talent spend to revenue, margin, and leadership capacity rather than headcount.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

They contrast fixing the process for one hire with fixing it across an entire year of hiring, then list the compounding returns: less rework, fewer wasted interviews, lower outside recruiting spend, better hiring decisions, more HR capacity, more management time back in the business, and more predictable execution as the company grows.

For brands planning a campaign

This supports a systems offer—talent-process redesign, interview and feedback loops, and hiring-manager alignment—positioned as a distinct engagement from search or placement.

Examples: Source 1

Leaders know the people, the history, and the daily issues, they write, and that proximity can make problems harder to see.

• They list the visible symptoms: critical roles open too long; revenue opportunities missed because the organization cannot add talent fast enough; margin pressure from turnover, bad hires, and repeated recruiting costs; managers spending time recruiting and firefighting instead of running the business; and reactive talent decisions with little visibility into what all of it costs.
• They argue that the value of an outside view is objectivity, experience, and expertise—not knowing more about the business than insiders do.

For brands planning a campaign

A direct case for fractional or advisory positioning: the pitch is judgment and a fresh read on a familiar problem, distinct from a sale of execution capacity.

Examples: Source 1

They call that good for recruiters, then say they now see it differently: a company that continually needs outside help for the same talent problems may not have a recruiting problem at all, and the open positions may just be the symptom. They also record the shift in their own view — "the part I see differently today than I did earlier in my career" — and argue for diagnosing what creates the problem before prescribing a solution.

Carmon leaves room for critical searches, specialized roles, and times when outside expertise and access to talent are exactly what the business needs. The argument is against permanent workarounds, not recruiting.

For brands planning a campaign

A candid point of view a partner can use in content to distinguish deliberate use of search from dependency, and a natural lead-in to the diagnostic offer.

Examples: Source 1

A recurring opening is a pointed question—how well do you really know your talent process, or why would talent be any different from the rest of the business?—followed by a compact list of symptoms and costs and a closing directive such as "diagnose first, then decide what actually needs to be fixed." The register is plain and analogy-driven, without recruiting- or HR-industry jargon.

Question openers, everyday analogies, bulleted symptom lists, short paragraphs, and an imperative close.

For brands planning a campaign

This pattern reads naturally to executive audiences and adapts easily to email, newsletters, or webinar openings rather than long technical pieces.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

Like Carmon, Weingartner treats hiring behavior as a business signal: she argues that speed shows decisiveness and alignment, while slow processes communicate indecision and risk.

Focuses on candidate experience, retention, and trust, using healthcare leadership language. Carmon diagnoses the company’s talent system and translates breakdowns into P&L costs.

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Both write for business leaders about finding and keeping strong operational talent.

Snodgrass’s posts focus on manufacturing and active searches on a recruiter’s desk, with plant execution, margins, and commercial scale as the frame. Carmon treats talent as a general business diagnostic and names fewer role-level searches.

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Huber diagnoses whether a role has a sourcing problem or a process problem; Carmon makes a similar diagnosis-first argument before recommending recruiting help.

Huber’s frame is Seed and Series A founders deciding between a full-time recruiter and flexible recruiting capacity. Carmon draws on a longer career and a CEO/owner perspective to discuss the talent system, leadership alignment, and P&L impact.

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Julia Weingartner argues that speed is a signal, not a tactic: three-plus interview rounds, weeks between follow-ups, and internal regroup purgatory tell strong candidates the company is indecisive and misaligned, and those candidates move on.

• A related post reframes turnover cost as trust leaving with the employee — relationships, undocumented institutional knowledge, confidence teammates relied on — and says the numbers most companies calculate miss the biggest loss.
• That makes Julia Weingartner a stronger partner when the offer is employer-brand, candidate-experience, or retention work for a healthcare or people-heavy employer, or when the diagnostic needs a process-velocity module with concrete fixes: tighten the process, shorten the gaps, empower decision-makers.

The argument is about how a company hires, not whether it should buy outside talent help, so it does not by itself create the CEO-level, P&L-sized case for a paid diagnostic that Chris Carmon's posts build. For a consulting firm selling a diagnostic sprint before search, Julia Weingartner supplies the process half of the pitch but less of the owner-and-finance framing that opens the budget conversation, and those posts do not show the cross-industry cost inventory that appears elsewhere.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

One post lists active searches on a personal desk — VP of Operations in food manufacturing, Director of Operations for an aerospace facility launch, Director of Engineering in pulp processing, plus sales, finance, logistics, and business-development roles — and invites readers to compare notes on leadership gaps.

• The second describes what strong plant and operations leaders do differently: they listen to operators before changing anything, treat safety, turnover, and morale as operational metrics rather than HR problems, and develop people so the business does not depend on one person.
• For a manufacturer evaluating a fractional talent strategist, Kelly Snodgrass speaks the buyer's language about plant execution, margins, and commercial scale.

This is closer to placement demand than diagnosis.

• The active-search post pitches capacity and pipeline, and while the leadership post offers an operational-turnaround point of view, neither makes the cost-of-inaction case for buying a diagnostic instead of another search.
• A consulting firm whose campaign depends on cross-industry CEO and finance-buyer reach would get narrower sector coverage and less of the system-level argument Chris Carmon makes, trading universality for manufacturing credibility.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

One post runs the real math on hiring a full-time recruiter at seed and Series A: salary plus benefits, taxes, an ATS, a recruiter seat, and sourcing tools; four to six weeks of ramp; a hiring plan that changes within a quarter; and the trough when the sprint ends and the recruiter has two open roles and a lot of free calendar.

• The other separates two problems often bought as one: nobody good entering the funnel is a sourcing problem; good people dying inside the process is a process problem.
• Buying sourcing for a process problem pours more candidates into a leaking bucket.
• For a founder-facing campaign about modular or fractional capacity that ramps up, down, and pauses with the plan, Jake Huber is the sharper voice.

The framing is venture-stage and recruiter-industry, and the posts read as a direct service pitch rather than a neutral diagnostic.

• That sits awkwardly beside a consulting offer built on diagnosing the business before prescribing search, and lacks the owner-led, multi-decade mid-market cost picture in Chris Carmon's posts.
• Choosing Jake Huber trades broader executive reach for startup budget math and an explicit 'I sell recruiting' stance that a diagnostics-first campaign would need to reconcile.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2