The Unicorn Dilemma: Hire for Talent, Not Perfection

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Welcome to All Things Work, where we are recording at SHRM Talent 2026 (Talent 2026) in Dallas with a special live audience today. Please give a round of applause for our first time today.

So many of us have heard a hiring manager say at some point, "I need someone who can do it all. They need to hit the ground running. I want someone experienced, strategic, hands-on, and low maintenance." It feels like the dream to have that star talent come right through the door, right? But when every preference becomes a mandatory requirement, it becomes a unicorn dilemma, where we end up searching for a candidate who simply does not exist.

So maybe the best candidate is four out of five of those things, but it takes time to learn that new job, learning to walk before you can run. Expecting this kind of perfection can really create several layers of friction, and challenges with recruitment are often just the very beginning to this all. So joining us to explore better approaches to hiring is Trisha Zuleick, SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP).

And Trisha is a consultant at Efficient Edge HR Services and the author of the book Unmuted Leader: Lead So They Listen. So in this episode, we are gonna dive into the practical challenges and solutions for rewriting the rules of hiring through Trisha's unmuted intake framework, which takes a refreshing approach to intake conversations, to clarify business needs, and define success in those roles.

We'll also discuss how to foster fairness, reduce that bias, and leverage data to create more inclusive and effective recruitment processes. So Trisha, welcome to All Things Work.

Trisha Zulic: Thank you for having me here.

Anne: We are so excited to have you. Now, the unicorn dilemma, we have your little unicorn here. For our listeners, I'm holding up a little stuffed toy of a unicorn that Trisha brought on stage with us.

I'm gonna hold onto this while we're talking. So Trisha, let's zoom out a bit, look at the kind of impact this unicorn dilemma can have when searching for that perfect, amazing candidate. What kind of domino effect can that create both in the hiring process and within the organization?

Trisha Zulic: You know, it's not just a domino effect. It's also a ripple effect in not the best way. Where I came up with the unicorn dilemma is when you have the hiring manager saying, "They need to have three to five years experience. They need to do this. They need to do that." It's just that perfection. And then when they say they want three to five years experience, you go, "Well, how about if we get a candidate with two and a half?"

And they go, "Okay, that'll work." "Can we go down to two?" "Yeah, that'll work." Okay, why do we have the requirement? You know? Let's be real about the conversation. And I literally, I do not recommend you go back to your work and do this, I literally would go into these intake meetings with a stuffed unicorn and say, "This is the only one you're gonna get. Let's talk reality." Because I understand their pressures. They need to get it done. Their KPIs and balanced scorecard is all depending on us getting the right people in. But the unicorn doesn't exist. And so we have to look at different ways of finding the right talent for them. So I call it unmute the intake.

Anne: So let's come out to our audience for a second here. How many of you feel like you have personally faced that unicorn dilemma, whether you were the one applying for the role or the one trying to hire or create the role? Oh, that's a lot. That's a lot of hands. Like, majority of the audience there.

You know, what does that say when you see all those hands up like that?

Trisha Zulic: It says it's a real problem that's never been labeled, and that we try to explain to the hiring manager, and they have us on mute, and we're trying to find the better way to explain to them what we need to do in today's world, because a lot of us are looking for that talent, but truly we're looking for that talent that wants to work.

And what we're running into is people that are like, "Eh, you know, maybe I'll come, maybe I won't. I'll do this, I'll do that." We're in a different society right now, and we have a different applicant, and we need to keep up with that.

Anne: And like you said, it creates that ripple effect, not so much in the best way. It can create difficult scenarios for organizations and workers who if they were given the opportunity, could actually thrive and grow into this role. But as if those weren't problematic enough, there's another side to that which you call the hiring paradox. So could you explain what that is and how that feeds into the disconnect we're seeing?

Trisha Zulic: So the hiring paradox, and I think a lot of people here will understand this. If you're in TA, recruiting, HR, whatever your role may be supporting a manager, everything's rainbows and sunshine until the new hire doesn't work out. Then guess who they're looking at? You. Our role is to find somebody with the key skills and abilities and meet the essential functions of the job. Once they're onboarded, they're turned over to management for training and acclimation to the environment. But if it's six weeks, six months, six days later, they come back to us going, "That's a bad hire." That's the paradox. They wanna hold us accountable for the bad hire. What's truly the root cause? Is it a bad hire or was it a bad situation?

Was there missing training? Was there a lack of explanation of things? There's so many things that happen, 'cause, you know, when you first get a new job, you don't even know where the bathroom is, and people are trying to figure it out. We all learn a little bit differently, and sometimes it takes somebody a little bit longer.

They're not good the first 30 days, but day 62, boom, they got it. They're gone. They're surpassing everybody else. And sometimes our hiring managers don't give that enough time. The paradox is, is we're held accountable for something that may not be our sole responsibility, and that's a misalignment.

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Anne: So tell me a little bit more about this stuffed unicorn little toy. What's the origin story behind this? Why is this one up on stage with us?

Trisha Zulic: So this is how it played out. I got a requisition from a manager on a Thursday afternoon so many years ago. It was about 2:00. Now, I sent out time to fill reports and gap analysis and everything else. And at that point in time, the reason why 38 sticks in my head is because at that time, time to fill was 38 days for those positions.

He sends me a requisition at 2:00 on Thursday. First I have to see is it budgeted or unbudgeted? Because if it's unbudgeted, it has to go to accounting and come back. This one was budgeted. It's a replacement hire for somebody that's leaving the next day, which they knew about a month ago, but did not tell me, and said, "I need two people by Monday."

And I'm like, "Let me check my file cabinet to see if I have human beings in it, because if I don't, you're not getting two people on Monday." It was very frustrating because I felt like I was good with my job and I felt like I was able to deliver the essential functions for hiring managers, getting the right people in the right place at the right time, and doing all the right training.

And so it was very frustrating to hear this from a manager saying, "I need these people by Monday." And I'm like, "This is not a world of unicorns. We just can't find them." And you know I hit that buy now button. I had them the next day, and I walked in with the manager and I went right in. I said, "I have a little something for you."

I am not suggesting you do this. Disclaimer. I have a little something for you. He says, "Oh, that's kinda cute. Oh, I can give that to my grandkids." I said, "Well, this is a toy unicorn, and it's the only one I'm gonna be able to find for you. Let's really talk about what you need for this job. What does success look like? What do we need to do to get a human being in this role to fulfill the essential functions of the job?" Many of the managers that I work with that have ever gotten a unicorn from me still have it, and they leave it on their desk as a reminder that we are dealing with human beings. The perfect candidate that they think exists doesn't. And that we really need to focus in on the deliverables.

Anne: So you essentially were bridging that gap in trying to do this in your role for job seekers and the hiring managers between the wish lists and the reality of the requirements of the role. So where can hiring managers or leaders working with HR start to make better, more effective hiring decisions?

Trisha Zulic: First of all, when we go into this intake interview, most of us, I'm not saying all of us, we try to manage the conversation. "Here's your interview questions. This is what you're gonna do. This and that." We need to unmute them, let them be more part of the process. Most of the positions that I work with in different companies, they have an interviewing guide, and there's like 10, 12 questions for each competency for each position.

I allow the hiring manager to pick it so that they have control over what they can control, and then I teach them what to look for in the response. And by doing that, it empowers them to have a better interview, 'cause if not, you end up with the statement, "Oh, they seem like they'll be a good fit," which means they were just comfortable with the person.

I mean, 'cause I have some jeans. Just 'cause they fit doesn't mean I need to have them on. A good fit is about comfort. It's not about capability, and we have to teach them that, and we have to unmute them and stop taking charge of the conversation, letting them say what they need. What does success look like in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days? Let them define it a little bit more.

Anne: So you have a unique solution, The Unmuted Intake Framework. You argue we need to treat the intake process as a design meaning. You kinda touched on this just a second ago, but not just a checkbox exercise, and you define it in four key steps. Can you walk us through what that process really looks like?

Trisha Zulic: So first step is clarity. We're going back to they need to have three to five years experience. They need to do this, this, this, and that. Do they really need that? Why do they need three to five years experience? I usually, when I talk with hiring managers, I use the analogy of a whiteboard. You guys know what those are? I'm not that old. Okay, good. So when you get a brand-new whiteboard, and you have the brand-new markers to use on the mark board, it just glides on. Everything looks pretty, and it's nice, and it's pristine. And over time, somebody uses a permanent marker, and you're using Windex to try to get it off, or somebody let it sit there too long, and the words are just kinda blended in the back, and you're trying to wipe...

Oh, you guys are laughing like, "Okay, yeah." So someone in the audience is laughing 'cause I think they have this whiteboard problem. So with the whiteboard, with all the letters written over it, and then you're trying to write on top of it, it's almost like that candidate that has three to five years experience where you're trying to wipe away what they've always done and teach them a new way.

And I say, "What about getting a brand-new whiteboard that's trainable and that has the key skills, abilities, and the competencies to learn how to do the job?" It's amazing what we can learn how to do. So the first step is clarity. The second step is unmuting them and letting them have the conversation with you where they feel like they are part of the meeting and they're not your student.

I think one thing that... My husband actually told me this. We, in this role, sometimes have our own vocabulary. The first time I said TA to him, he says, "Honey, what are you saying?" I go, "Talent acquisition. What were you thinking?" Let's not talk about it. And then he... I would say things, and I said to him once, I said, "Do you think we talk in riddles?"

He says, "Well, Miss HR, do you wanna know?" I go, "Yeah, Mr. Officer, I do." He's in law enforcement. And he said to me, "I've seen you at the SHRM conferences. You get around your peers, and you guys smile and laugh, and all I hear is, 'DOL, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), he, he, he, he, he,' and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You guys just go into this whole lingo that if you talk to your hiring managers that way-" They're gonna feel less than, 'cause they don't know what it means.

And therefore, they're just gonna nod and do what they're gonna do. He says maybe take the language down a notch. Don't use the acronyms. Because he happened to know what KSAs are, key skills and abilities. Your hiring manager may not. The third step is more about bring it all together, where both of you are on the same page about what's needed, and then you talk reality about how long it might take and what could possibly speed up the process.

There's something in Lean Six Sigma that talks about quality, speed, and cost. They teach you you can't have all three. If you want high quality, it may cost you, and it may take longer. If you want it fast, it may be more expensive, and the quality might not be... You get the scenario. You start, you have that conversation about that.

You explain those three pillars and talk about what they actually need and want and how long they're gonna wait for that.

Anne: Your final step focuses on moving from gut feelings to solid evidence, getting that data to support. So how do we shift hiring managers away from solely looking for that culture fit or culture addition and more toward hiring for evidence?

Trisha Zulic: The unicorn. Shifting away from the unicorn to hiring for evidence-based hiring. I believe that most hiring managers were never taught how to interpret behavioral interview questions. We give them to them, we tell them to ask them, and they're using what they believe is the common sense of how it's answered.

We need to give them example words or statements that actually show the person has the competency. That's the evidence. If not, they're gonna go on what they feel. I had a manager hire someone. We went through the whole thing. He had his questions that I selected for him. He went through the whole thing.

He says, "Yeah, this is a good one. He's a Raiders fan." I'm like, "How did you find out he's a Raiders fan?" "Oh, it came up in natural conversation." No. He says, "He's a great fit." He made him feel comfortable. How did they get on football? I don't know. They were behavioral questions, but that's when it dawned on me, I gave him the questions, but I didn't tell him or teach him some of the key words that look like the answer.

So we gave him the tools and said, "Fix that wall," but didn't tell them how. And that how is what makes the difference of some people that are trying to skill up, level up, and they come to a manager and they may be missing one of the essential functions, but that part is trainable. But they say no because they don't know what it looks like.

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Anne: Switching gears here a little bit, SHRM consistently analyzes the labor market trends and found earlier this year that nearly one-third of job openings, about 32.7%, could not be filled by unemployed individuals whose most recent employment was in that job group.

That stood out to me earlier this year. That's why I wanted to include it in this conversation. Our researchers emphasized we are seeing what is called an occupational mismatch. So how do you think this gap amplifies the unicorn dilemma you've been mentioning today?

Trisha Zulic: I think there's some biases out there, right? If you say you're a manager of ABC Company, and XYZ does the same thing, two things are going through somebody's mind. Do we want the competition in here, or what can we gain from them? Or I don't want them over here because they used to work for so-and-so. You have all these biases happening in the background, and a title does not determine skill.

I'm sorry. It just doesn't. And if we don't teach our hiring managers that, they're not gonna make the right choices. I'm sure many of you have sent resumes or applications of candidates you thought were perfect, and they were overlooked, and they didn't even interview them. You have to ask yourself why.

What was missed? What did you see they didn't see? What is it that the hiring manager doesn't know? And sometimes it's something as simple as, I kid you not, "I couldn't pronounce their name." I've heard that. "They live too far." These are all biases. They're making decisions. I've gotten to the point... You know the old school, how if you went to an agency, they blind out the name, the address, and all that stuff?

Guess what? That old school practice works now. I get less backlash from the hiring manager when they can't see all of that. But we have to teach them how to remove bias from the process because there's great people out there that possess the key skills and abilities, other characteristics, that can perform the essential functions of a job, but somehow they're overlooked.

Anne: And just to turn to the audience, how many of you have been told you were overqualified for a position? Including me. I've been told that.

Trisha Zulic: Wow.

Anne: We've got quite a few hands up in here. What does that say to the whole process? It's like it's not unique, right?

Trisha Zulic: You know what it really says? I want to be super candid. The hiring manager's saying, "I'm afraid of you. You could take my job." Hiring managers should be hiring people that can take their jobs so they can level up and move to the next step, and we have not taught them that. They're sitting in fear 'cause sometimes those hiring managers, it's a generational norm to stay in the chair until the end.

People should be hiring people that are smart as or as good as or better than them. How else do you get into a different chair if you just hire people that you have to coach all the time and then say, "Hey, recruiter, you hired a bad person"? What does that really do? So part of this is unmuting them. Many of us in this profession have been muted for a long time.

We either muted ourselves, we got tired of saying the same thing, or the company just says, "Okay, we hired you as a recruiter, but let me tell you how to do your job." And then you're just like, "Well, why did you hire a subject matter expert if you wanna proceed to tell me how to do it? I need to use my key skills and abilities to perform the essential functions of the job."

But the flip side is, with our managers, we may have muted them 'cause we're tired of hiring people for them and they keep turning them over. But maybe the issue is they don't understand the process. They're not gonna come to you and say, "You know, I really don't understand what a behavioral interview question is."

They're not gonna tell you that. They're not. I really don't understand this question we're asking, why does the competency matter? They're not gonna tell you that. We need to unmute them and talk in their language, take it down a notch, use your business acumen competency and have a conversation.

Anne: So when it comes to the intake conversation, how does intentional intake impact clarity, consistency, and bias reduction in hiring?

Trisha Zulic: Every time I do an intake meeting, once we get to the point, most of the managers I work with now, they get the drill. They've already picked out their questions and why, and they're like, "I asked this question last time, but I didn't like the responses, and I'm seeing it on the work floor now," and they're picking it out. Every single intake meeting, we gotta do this again.

Let's go through the biases. They're similar to me. There's recency bias, there's leniency bias. There's all these different biases that we have to stay conscious of because the person you're interviewing is somebody's child, somebody's brother, somebody's sister, somebody's mother, someone's father. It's a human being that we need to have empathy for, and if our biases are loud, you may pass over a great candidate, and that person may go home and not understand how they're gonna pay their rent in a few weeks 'cause they couldn't get a job.

I had an applicant. I was having a hot flash, but he was sweating profusely, and I'm like, "Is my hot flash contagious to you? What is going on here?" He's bouncing his leg. He says, "I'm really nervous, ma'am. I just really, I'm just so happy that I have this opportunity. My whole family knows I'm here today, and I really, I really hope I do well with this interview."

And water is tearing up in his eyes, and I'm like, "There is hope for humanity." I said, "Take a deep breath. What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?" He goes, "Ma'am?" In my head, I'm like, "Please don't call me ma'am. You're making me feel old." But, "What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?" He goes, "Well, I like pistachio."

I said, "Oh, the green one?" He says, "It's not always green. When you make fresh ice cream and you put fresh nuts in it, it's a whole, it's a game changer. They sell these great ice cream makers where you can have a single serving, and you can have just enough within the calorie intake you want. I put my own fresh pistachios in it."

And he says, "It just..." You could see his calmness drop when he was talking about something great. We went into the behavioral questions. We had a great interview. He stood up. He shook my hand, and he says, "Thank you for your time. I feel really good about myself today." I said, "Congratulations." And then they moved on to the hiring manager, and the hiring manager, "Where did you get this guy? He came in here talking about ice cream." I said, "It carried over from our conversation. It was this green conversation." He says, "But I think he could do the job." He's now the trainer for the position, less than six months.

Anne: So finally, a big step is making this new strategy clear to organizational leaders and encouraging buy-in to turn this structure into a reality 'cause we were talking about this, but now our audience is gonna go back to their workplace, and they're gonna have to really think, "How do I communicate this to the higher-ups?"

So as our audience returns to their teams, what would you say are the three key business impacts they should consider to get more people on board here?

Trisha Zulic: Well, first of all, know your audience. That's the first thing. It depends on your organization. Yeah, it does. You just can't go back tomorrow and put a unicorn on the CEO's desk and say, "Okay, that's the only one you're gonna get. Let's move forward." There's no one size fits all. It doesn't necessarily work that way, but it starts with a paradigm shift of change. Say I'm gonna redo my strategy. First of all say, "Thank you for letting me go to Talent 2026.

This is what I brought back from it, and this is what my peers are doing, and this is what I heard over and over and over again. We gotta get better with AI, but we have to use Human Ingenuity (HI). We need to look at how we're doing our interviewing. We need to have a better interview guide, and we need to respect the intake meeting just a touch more, and I need to give that power with to the manager."

And I think it depends on your organization, but you need to line it out, and I'd be remiss if I didn't say why don't you use AI? Include HI. This is the kind of framework at my organization. Can you give me a 60 or 90 day plan on how to shift to this framework? Because it's gonna take some work from you.

Anne: So what's the biggest takeaway from this conversation today? You really want our audience to walk away with them and bring back to their teams.

Trisha Zulic: Believe it or not, we need to listen a little bit more. Many times we're putting our hiring managers on mute because they're saying stuff and they sound like Charlie Brown's teacher. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Because you've told them 10 times something. We now need to give them grace and empathy in their leadership skills, understanding we're the subject matter expert, they are not, and we need to do a better job at helping them through this process. And part of it may start with an apology.

I may have approached this incorrectly. We're gonna go through a paradigm shift and this is what it looks like. This is your new hire, the person you're gonna be responsible for to make sure they can deliver the essential functions. I wanna make sure that I give you all the tools that you need, so we're gonna do a reset.

Anne: Thank you, Trisha, so much for your knowledge and insights, and that's it for this week. We'll catch you next time.

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