Ryan Englin on The CTO Show: Becoming the Leader People Won't Leave

I went on The CTO Show with Mehmet Gonullu to talk about why most companies struggle to hire good people and what they need to fix first.

Here's the uncomfortable truth I opened with: people don't leave jobs. They leave bosses. Everyone nods when they hear that phrase. But almost nobody acts on it. If we know the number one reason people look for work is a bad boss, why do 99 out of 100 job ads talk about pay, benefits, and PTO instead of who you'll work for and what kind of team you're joining? That disconnect is the root of the problem.

Mehmet asked me if there's really a talent shortage out there. I don't buy it. It's easier for companies to play the victim and say "there are no good people" than to look inward and ask whether they're the problem. If you're not attracting good people, consider that you might not be attractive to good people. That's the shift. Stop obsessing over what the employee will do for you and start asking what you will do for them. Not just their career. Their life. The number one thing that attracts people to a new job right now is personal training and development. They want to become better people, not just better coders or better techs.

We dug into ghosting because Mehmet wanted to understand why applicants disappear. I'll say it plainly: employers caused this. Two-thirds of people who apply for a job never hear back. We've been ghosting job seekers for decades. Now they do it to us and we act shocked. We trained an entire generation of workers to believe we don't care about them. The fix is simple. Treat every incoming application like a customer lead. You'd never let a sales lead sit in your inbox for a week. So why do you let an applicant sit there? We coach our clients to respond within 15 minutes. Automate it. Let the applicant tracking system screen initial answers and either move the person forward or send the rejection right away. Rip the Band-Aid off. Nobody benefits from sitting in limbo.

I also shared something I see constantly. Companies don't actually know what the person they're hiring is supposed to do. They can't define success for the role. They can't tell you how they'll measure results. They just need a warm body in a seat and figure they'll sort the rest out later. That's backwards. You need a Core Fit Profile before you ever post a job. Know what the role looks like when someone crushes it. Know what behaviors matter. Then build your entire interview process around observing those behaviors.

Mehmet brought up the rockstar employee concept, and I walked him through the difference between rock stars and superstars. Rock stars are the foundation of your team. They don't want the promotion. They don't want to manage people. They want to be top 10% in their current role, go home, and do it again tomorrow. Superstars want to climb fast. If you don't move them up every six months, they leave. The problem is superstars interview brilliantly because they do it all the time. Rock stars bomb interviews because they haven't interviewed in years. Most companies accidentally hire the superstar, then wonder why the new person is restless and pointing out everything that's broken by week two.

The easiest way to identify your rock stars? Think about who you introduce every new hire to. "This person will answer all your questions. They know the ins and outs." That person is your rock star. And because they don't rock the boat and they've been with you for years, you get complacent. You stop investing in them. Then one day they've had enough and you feel lost. Pour into your rock stars. Most of them want to grow personally more than professionally because professionally they're already at the top of their game.

I talked about my book Hire Better People Faster and the full Core Fit Hiring System it walks through. From setting your culture and values to finding people, automating your pipeline, running a real interview process, onboarding with intention, engaging your team, and measuring whether the whole system works.

I closed with one piece of advice for anyone listening. Google yourself with the ignorance of someone who knows nothing about you. See what a job seeker sees when they type your company name followed by "jobs." Look at your Glassdoor reviews, your website, your social media. Ask yourself: would I want to work here? If the answer is no, fix it. Because if you're not controlling your employer brand, someone else is controlling it for you.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on employer branding and the full hiring system on Titans of the Trades.