Groupthink When Hiring - All Things Product Podcast with Teresa Torres & Petra Wille

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Is hiring broken—or just badly designed?

In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres unpack what’s really going wrong in modern hiring processes. From AI-fueled application overload to endless interview loops and “casual” team lunches that derail months of work, they explore how groupthink, bias, and poorly defined criteria are quietly sabotaging good hiring decisions.

They discuss why involving too many people with veto power often leads to no decision at all, how “culture fit” becomes a proxy for bias, and what product teams can learn from product discovery when designing hiring processes. Plus, they share practical advice for candidates navigating today’s brutal job market—and resources to help you avoid going it alone.

Whether you’re a product leader hiring your next PM or a product practitioner stuck in interview limbo, this episode offers clarity, empathy, and concrete ways forward.

Show Notes:

What’s happening in the hiring market

  • Layoffs and hiring freezes are making the job market especially tough

  • Companies are overwhelmed by hundreds of applications, often amplified by AI tools

  • Hiring funnels are getting longer, with more interviews and more stakeholders involved

When “one last step” kills the offer

  • Candidates pass every formal interview—only to be rejected after a casual team lunch

  • Teams often aren’t briefed on what they’re supposed to evaluate

  • Groupthink kicks in when one negative comment cascades into a no-hire decision

Groupthink ≠ good hiring decisions

  • Letting everyone veto a candidate almost guarantees no one gets hired

  • Focus-group-style interviews create bias, not signal

  • “Culture fit” often masks stereotypes and personal preferences

A better way to design hiring

  • Define who you’re hiring before writing the job description

  • Set clear success metrics for the role

  • Assign each interviewer specific criteria to evaluate

  • Treat hiring like product discovery: intentional, structured, and evidence-based

Chemistry checks done right

  • It’s okay to assess collaboration—but only if you define what that actually means

  • Introversion, debate style, or lunch-table behavior are not performance indicators

  • Diverse teams outperform homogenous ones—even if not everyone “vibes”

Advice for candidates
If a process feels broken, it’s often not about you
You can ask how you’re being evaluated to gauge process maturity
Many companies simply haven’t figured hiring out yet

Resources & Links:

Mentioned in this episode:

Petra Wille