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A data-driven look at why throwing money at talent acquisition doesn't work - and what actually does
Every year, NFL teams deploy what one analyst calls "small armies of scouts and analysts sorting through thousands of college players." These billion-dollar organizations invest millions in scouting departments, leverage infinite oceans of data, and employ 50+ person staffs dedicated to finding talent.
Yet despite these massive investments, NFL teams make more drafting mistakes than perhaps any other major sport.
Sound familiar?
This isn't just a sports problem. It's the same pattern we see in corporate hiring: companies throw money at recruiting firms, invest in expensive ATS systems, and hire armies of recruiters - yet still struggle to find and hire the right talent.
The NFL draft offers a perfect case study in why buying power alone doesn't solve talent acquisition challenges, and what actually does.
Let's start with the numbers. The averageNFL team employ approximately 50 people in their scouting and analytics departments. They purchase data from companies like Pro Football Focus (PFF) and Sumer Sports. They use computer vision technology to track player movements. They analyze "infinitely more data than there's been in the past."
And yet, as one former GM admits: "They know how they should draft, but they don't."
This paradox - having all the resources but still failing - mirrors exactly what happens in corporate hiring. Companies invest in:
But like NFL teams that keep missing on draft picks, these companies still can't consistently hire the right people.
The most striking revelation from the NFL analysis is this: teams know the optimal strategy but don't follow it.
Richard Thaler and Cade Massey's research "The Loser's Curse" proved that NFL teams should trade down to get more picks and trade current picks for future ones. The math is clear: more attempts at finding talent yields better results than betting everything on a few "sure things."
As Kevin Cole, a former PFF data scientist, confirms: "Everybody knows it's conventional wisdom in the NFL."
Yet teams continue doing the opposite - trading up for supposedly "can't miss" prospects who often do miss.
This same knowledge-action gap exists in corporate hiring:
Why don't organizations follow proven strategies? The NFL draft reveals the answer: misaligned incentives.
NFL GMs have the shortest tenure in professional sports. They're "optimizing for the moonshot" because "most hits are still misses according to their incentives." They need to win now, not build for the future.
The hypothetical Jets GM perfectly illustrates this: even though trading for future picks is mathematically optimal, doing so means three losing seasons - and getting fired before the strategy pays off.
Corporate hiring suffers from identical misalignment:
Most CEOs automatically think 'who can we hire to solve this? iInstead of 'how do we build the capability to solve this ourselves?
The best organizations, they're the most stable organizations. Period.
The Philadelphia Eagles' success with GM Howie Roseman illustrates this perfectly. Despite fans literally calling for his firing at one point, ownership maintained stability. The result? Three Super Bowl appearances from "the man who trades down perhaps more than anyone."
Contrast this with teams that constantly cycle through GMs and coaches - they never escape the short-term thinking trap.
The same pattern holds in corporate hiring. Companies that build stable, internal hiring capabilities consistently outperform those that lurch from recruiter to recruiter, system to system.
Here's where the TASSI framework provides the answer. Instead of asking "Who can we hire to solve our hiring problem?" successful organizations ask "How do we build the capability to solve this ourselves?"
This isn't about doing everything in-house. Even the NFL's best drafting teams still use external data providers. But they build internal capabilities to:
As the TASSI framework notes: "Building internal hiring capability is infrastructure - like your CRM or accounting system."
Perhaps the most compelling insight from both the NFL analysis and TASSI framework is this: while everyone else outsources their core talent decisions, organizations that build internal capability create unfair advantages.
In the NFL, teams like the Ravens and Patriots built dynasties not through free agency splurges but through consistently excellent drafting - the result of stable, capable internal systems.
In business, companies that invest in hiring capability rather than just hiring services get:
The NFL draft teaches us that throwing money at talent acquisition - whether through expensive scouts or external recruiters - isn't enough. Even with billion-dollar budgets and 50-person departments, teams still fail when they:
The solution isn't to hire better recruiters or buy better tools. It's to shift from a transactional mindset ("Who can we pay to fix this?") to a capability mindset ("How do we build this strength internally?").
As the NFL shows us, in talent acquisition as in football - the teams that build sustainable, stable systems beat the teams that just write bigger checks.
The question for your organization: Will you keep paying for expensive draft picks that might miss? Or will you build the capability to consistently find and develop talent?
The choice, unlike predicting talent, is actually quite predictable.
Want to learn more about building internal hiring capability? The TASSI framework provides a roadmap for organizations ready to stop outsourcing their talent advantage.