I once took a candidate to a bar in Larnaca with my CEO and our head of projects. The conversation was brilliant. Funny, warm, full of war stories from previous roles. We all genuinely liked this person. By the end of the evening I was mentally drafting the offer letter.
And then, somewhere between the second round and the bill, I realised I couldn’t picture them doing the job. Not the socialising, not the anecdotes, not the charm. The actual job. The 8am standups, the weekend deploys, the unglamorous Tuesday afternoon where nothing is on fire but everything needs pushing forward. Startup is a grind, and this person was lovely but they weren’t a grinder.
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