Hiring Dilemma: Should you Choose the First Candidate you Interview?

When you find an exceptional candidate right out of the gate, should you continue interviewing others or make an offer immediately? This common recruitment dilemma requires careful consideration of several factors.

A Real “Case Study:”

Last year, I was tasked with identifying a Director of Enterprise Architecture for a digital solutions firm. Interestingly, the very first candidate I sourced and screened ended up becoming the person the company ultimately hired. Despite this candidate checking all the required boxes, the hiring team still wanted to interview additional talent for comparison purposes.

Was continuing the search the right decision? In retrospect, perhaps not, given that this first candidate remained the company’s top choice throughout the entire process.

The Case for Moving Forward with the First Great Candidate

No, you don’t necessarily have to interview more candidates if the first one clearly meets or exceeds your requirements. When talent is scarce, or the role is urgent to fill, waiting could mean losing your ideal candidate to competitors.

The Fear of Missing Out

A hiring manager in my network pointed out, “FOMO is the root cause of this and a lot of indecision. The real question companies should be asking is, can we afford to lose this person entirely? Not, is there possibly someone better out there?”

This perspective shifts the focus from an endless search for the “perfect” candidate to a more practical assessment of value and risk. When you’ve found someone who meets your requirements, the potential cost of losing them may outweigh the theoretical benefit of finding someone marginally better.

Skills-Based Hiring Changes the Game

Skills-based hiring is “the trend” for 2025, as employers are moving away from degrees and job titles to focus on skills. Another fellow hiring manager highlights a crucial evolution in hiring practices: “This has been a big topic recently for me as we transition to a skills-based hiring culture. In my experience, the ‘old way’ was to interview several people and pick the ‘best’ person (even if they weren’t that ‘great’.) If you have clearly defined a success profile for the job, including skills, and through the interview process, you assess that the candidate checks off the essential skills, hire them!”

This skills-based approach provides a more objective framework for decision-making. The same person notes the flip side: “The opposite end of the spectrum is that if you interview several people and NONE of them check off the essential skills, keep looking. Trust me, that sucks, but it’s the right thing to do for all involved.”

The Recruitment Game

Is there a psychological aspect in the sequence of presenting candidate in the hiring process? One recruiter in my network noted that while they often instinctively recognize their top candidate early, they deliberately schedule interviews strategically—presenting their second-best candidate first (who still impresses), their third-best second, and saving their strongest candidate for last to create a “slam dunk” impression.

However, this same recruitment expert questions whether such tactics are truly necessary: “Why do we have to play games rather than overcome the fear of hiring the first person you interview? When it’s my team, and I’m the leader, I hop on great people whether I’ve seen 12 or 1. Comparison for comparison’s sake is a waste of time. Trust your recruiter and maximize your time.”

The Role of Familiarity

An important insight comes from considering how frequently a particular role is filled: “When it’s a role a company hires for regularly, it stands to reason that they already have whatever they might need in terms of knowing what good looks like. But if it’s a role that is new, rarely hired for, and/or the only one of its kind, I’ve found that hiring managers want to meet at least 2-3 candidates in order to compare and contrast.”

This contextual understanding helps explain why some positions might benefit from a broader candidate pool while others can be filled confidently with fewer interviews.

The Benefits of Interviewing Multiple Candidates

Now, the upside: there are advantages to evaluating a pool of qualified candidates:

Benchmarking opportunities: Having multiple candidates allows you to compare strengths and weaknesses across different profiles.
Bias mitigation: Interviewers can sometimes be influenced by the “halo effect” with the first candidate they meet. This is precisely why it’s critically important to create an evaluation matrix with objective criteria before beginning any interview process. A well-designed matrix keeps your hiring team accountable and focused on relevant qualifications rather than subjective impressions.

The Risk of Waiting

The primary danger in prolonging your search is straightforward but significant:

Your top candidate might accept another offer or lost interest while you are inteviewing others.

Making the Right Decision for Your Specific Search

Every recruitment situation is unique. Your decision about conducting additional interviews should consider:

The urgency to fill the position
The availability of the required skills in the current market
The quality of your initial candidate against your predetermined criteria
Your familiarity with hiring for this particular role

When talent with the required skills is scarce, don’t hesitate to move quickly with exceptional candidates.

Maintaining Candidate Engagement

In my Director search case, transparency was key. I was completely open with the candidate about the timeline and made it clear he was the first person in the process. Weekly updates on the search status kept him engaged, while regular check-ins allowed me to gauge his continued interest and any competing opportunities he might be considering.

The Final Outcome

The end result was positive—the company gained confidence in its decision after interviewing other candidates in the market and successfully secured its first-choice candidate. The additional interviews confirmed what they suspected from the beginning: their first candidate was indeed the best fit.

What’s your experience? If you’re involved in hiring, do you prefer to interview multiple candidates even when the first interviewee appears fully qualified for the role?