🔥 The Toxic Hiring Cycle in Construction: How Companies Set Good Employees Up to Fail (And How to Stop It

The construction industry runs on talent. Companies need skilled people to manage projects, solve problems, and keep the operation moving. But too often, the hiring process in construction feels less like smart recruiting and more like a toxic relationship—one that follows the classic narcissistic abuse cycle:

1. Over-the-top idealization – Companies get excited about a new hire without truly assessing them.
2. Sudden devaluation – The moment a flaw appears, the enthusiasm vanishes.
3. Inevitable rejection – The employee is discarded, blamed, and replaced.

This pattern not only burns through talent but also hurts companies in the long run. Yet, it keeps happening—over and over. Why? Because many companies don’t actually know how to hire well, and instead of admitting their own role in the failure, they blame the person they just brought on board.

Let’s break this cycle down.

Step 1: Idealization – The Honeymoon Phase (That Shouldn’t Be One)

Hiring managers often enter interviews with a mix of excitement and desperation. They need someone now, so they latch onto a candidate who seems like a great fit. But instead of truly evaluating the person’s skills, work style, and ability to handle the job’s real challenges, they rely on:

• Gut feeling (which is often just unconscious bias)
• Surface-level questions (“Tell me about yourself” instead of “How would you handle a subcontractor who’s blowing deadlines?”)
• Hope (crossing fingers that the person will just figure things out)

Even worse, many companies oversell the role. They highlight the exciting parts but gloss over the real challenges—office politics, broken systems, unrealistic deadlines, or whatever chaos they’re actually hiring this person to fix.

The result? A false sense of alignment. The company thinks they’ve found their superstar. The employee thinks they’re walking into a great opportunity. Neither is seeing the full picture.

Step 2: Devaluation – The “Oh, You’re Not Perfect?” Moment

Every new hire has a learning curve. But in companies trapped in the narcissistic cycle, there’s little patience for it.

The moment a flaw appears—maybe the employee struggles with a particular system, pushes back on a bad process, or simply doesn’t work as fast as expected—the company’s attitude shifts.

• The praise stops.
• The scrutiny ramps up.
• The same managers who said, “We’ll support you!” now say, “Why isn’t this done yet?”

Instead of providing guidance, training, or a reality check on expectations, the company distances itself. Suddenly, this new hire isn’t “the one” anymore. They’re a “bad fit.”

And here’s the problem with that phrase.

Saying a candidate “wasn’t a fit” is like a doctor saying a patient “died because they were sick.” No kidding. That’s what you’re there to fix. A doctor’s job is to diagnose and treat illness. A leader’s job is to identify and develop talent. If someone wasn’t a fit, what that really means is leadership failed to either assess them properly or give them what they needed to succeed.

So when companies keep blaming candidates, they’re actually indicting themselves.

Step 3: Rejection – The Convenient Amnesia of Commitment

At this point, the writing’s on the wall. The company convinces itself that the hire was a mistake, and rather than course-correcting, they just get rid of them.

• Maybe it’s a quiet push-out—less support, more pressure, waiting for them to quit.
• Maybe it’s a sudden firing, with vague feedback like, “It’s just not working out.”
• Either way, the employee is gone, and the company moves on—without actually fixing anything.

And just like that, the cycle resets. The next hiring push starts, and the company repeats the same mistakes, wondering why turnover is so high.

Why This Keeps Happening (And How to Stop It)

Here’s another hard truth: Companies often expect recruiters to somehow “fix” their hiring issues. They think a recruiter should be able to find candidates who can magically navigate broken leadership, unclear expectations, and toxic cultural dynamics—but that’s not how it works.

Recruiters don’t make candidates successful. Leadership does.

If a company doesn’t fix its leadership issues, it doesn’t matter how much money they throw at recruiting—good candidates will keep failing, leaving, or being fired.

And if a recruiter has a high success rate with candidates, it’s not just because they’re good at picking people—it’s because they work with companies that actually take ownership of hiring, onboarding, and development.

So, if your hires keep failing, it’s time to stop blaming recruiters, candidates, or “bad fits” and start asking: What are we doing wrong?

How to Break the Cycle

1. Interview Like a Pro (Not a Speed-Dater)

• Ditch the vague questions. Ask real-world scenario-based questions that test how a candidate thinks.
• Actually discuss the challenges of the job—the things that might make someone struggle.
• Use structured assessments (skill tests, role-playing exercises) to see how they’d actually perform.

2. Stop Expecting Instant Results

• Every hire, no matter how experienced, needs time to adjust.
• Define clear performance metrics—but with reasonable timelines.
• Provide support instead of just watching for mistakes.

3. Own Your Side of the Hiring Process

• If someone doesn’t work out, don’t just say, “They weren’t a fit.” Ask:
  • Did we assess them properly?
  • Did we set them up for success?
  • Did we give them a fair chance?
• If you keep losing people, the problem isn’t just the employees—it’s the system.

Final Thoughts: Break the Cycle for Good

The narcissistic hiring cycle is a real problem in construction, but it’s fixable. Companies that take hiring and onboarding seriously—not just as a warm-body-filling-a-seat situation but as a long-term investment—see better retention, stronger teams, and fewer costly hiring mistakes.

It starts with accountability. The best companies don’t just hire well—they hire responsibly.

So, next time you bring someone on, ask yourself: Are we truly assessing and supporting this person, or are we just waiting for them to fail?

Because if it’s the latter, you’re just setting up the next cycle of frustration—for them and for you.

Need Help Getting This Right?

If you’re serious about hiring smarter, building stronger teams, and breaking this cycle for good, let’s talk. Ambassador Group specializes in helping construction companies improve their hiring, onboarding, and retention strategies—so you stop wasting time, money, and talent on bad hiring decisions.

📅 Schedule a call here → Ambassador Group Exploratory Call

Let’s make sure your next hire is a success—not another casualty of the cycle.