Years ago I started recruiting a candidate who was a perfect skill match for my client. Same industry. Same ICP. Same sales motion. He took the first call, did the second interview, talked through comp.
He was in year 7 with his current employer. The last year before tenure crosses into “won’t move” territory.
He kept showing up for conversations whenever things weren’t going well at work. He’d say “I want to know what else is out there.” But he never moved. Every time it came down to resigning, he stayed.
It’s been more than four years since that first call. He just passed year 11. He’s still there.
The pattern took too long to recognize. He wasn’t recruitable. He was a tourist. Year 7 should have been the warning. The next four confirmed it.
We see this play out across software sales hiring. Hiring managers and recruiters get attached to candidates who will never make the move. The interview rounds pile up. The seat stays empty. The candidate keeps interviewing because it makes them feel valuable, not because they’re going anywhere.
Probability is the antidote.
Every sales candidate has a probability of taking your offer. That probability is set by their current situation, not by how impressed they are with your pitch.
The skilled recruiter reads the probability fast and decides where to spend the hours. The hopeful recruiter keeps pursuing low-probability candidates because the candidate seems interested, ignores the signals, and burns weeks of search time the client doesn’t have.
Here are the signals to read.
1. Direct competitor with similar pay. If a candidate is at a direct competitor making the same money, they don’t have a reason to leave. Exception: if your client is the top 1 or 2 in the space and the candidate is at a #4 or #5, the brand step-up flips the probability.
2. 8+ years of tenure. Year 7 is the line of last recruit. Past that, candidates are usually too embedded. Equity, role, comfort, identity all anchor them in place. Exceptions that flip it: they accepted a counteroffer in the last 18 months and now regret it, or there’s a CEO or CRO change so material that even long-tenured people start looking. The CEO change exception is a big maybe, not a sure thing.
3. Just promoted to a new role. A fresh promotion buys 12 to 18 months of loyalty. They want to prove the title was earned. Exception: their boss recently left or is about to leave. The relationship that drove the promotion is gone.
The opposite of the above is the candidate worth investing time in. A few patterns that flip the math toward “they’ll take your offer”:
1. The new job is a step up in some way. A move from mid-market to enterprise, a real comp jump, or a brand step-up to a name everyone in the industry knows.
2. Recent disruption at their current company. Merger, acquisition, reorg, layoffs, commission plan cuts, product problems, implementation problems, CEO issues. Any of these crack the loyalty math.
3. Recent leadership change. Especially the CEO or CRO. The relationships that made the company feel stable are getting rebuilt. Long-tenured employees start asking themselves if they want to be part of the next chapter.
4. Personal inflection points. Milestone birthdays at 30, 35, 40, or 50 make people audit their lives. The math on staying changes when the calendar reminds them how few years they have left to make a move.
The pattern across all of these: something has changed in the candidate’s world that makes the cost of moving lower than the cost of staying.
The discipline is to apply the probability assessment in the first interview with every candidate conversation, not in week 6.
Hopeful recruiting feels productive. Interviews are happening and calendars are full. But if you’re investing hours in a candidate at year 11 with no disruption, no comp issue, no leadership change, no inflection point, you’re not sourcing. You’re scheduling meetings with someone who will keep interviewing forever and never move.
The cost lands on your client. Hiring managers get emotionally attached. They start envisioning the candidate in the seat. When the candidate finally says no, or worse, ghosts, the client has lost weeks they didn’t have and they’re starting over without the goodwill they had at the start of the search.
Pick up the signals early and walk away from the low-probability bets fast. Spend the hours on the candidates whose situation says they’ll move. Then, when the high-probability candidates show up, don’t pass on them for small flaws. Move on them quickly.
If your search has been open more than 60 days and you’re not sure whether the candidates you’re talking to are real, that’s the conversation worth having before you burn another month.
