Perspectives: Hiring in the Land of Make-Believe

May 21, 2026 at 2:00 pm ET

Cut Through the Performance to Hire with Confidence

To make a new hire is to participate in a performance. Post a new job, and suddenly everyone is acting as if they’re on stage. Candidates are coached, polished, and increasingly AI-assisted. Meanwhile, hiring managers are pantomiming to the ideal candidate they’ve imagined instead of addressing the very real person in front of them. Companies are selling a sparkling version of themselves that rarely delivers once it’s time for real work to begin. Impression management isn’t just a flaw in the hiring process—it’s become the entire process.

Once a new hire reaches Day 90, the curtain drops, and missed targets, team friction, and disengagement often follow.
Join us to learn how to confront the high costs of this structural failure—from early turnover and team friction to massive behavioral mismatch. We’ll show you what it means to hire for real by using behavioral science to cut through the performance layer, reveal how candidates are actually wired to operate, and create alignment across your hiring team well before the offer goes out.

In this session, we will:

• Recognize the hidden costs of impression management and how behavioral mismatch shows up in Day 90 performance, team friction, and early turnover.
• Discover how behavioral science cuts through the performance layer to reveal how candidates are actually wired to work, not just how they interview.
• Audit your current funnel for “theatrical gaps” from job descriptions that oversell to interviews that reward the wrong traits.
• Apply a team-based approach to hiring that replaces individual gut feel with shared behavioral intelligence before finalizing the candidate choice.
• Identify “fast and free” steps your organization can implement immediately to bring more authenticity and alignment to every hiring decision.

Credits

Bonus for our live attendees… tune in for 1 HRCI and 1 SHRM credit!

Panelists—TBA!

Hema Crockett, she/her

Co-Founder, Gig Talent

Jackie Dube, she/her

SVP of People Operations