Hiring bad people is signaling to your existing, well functioning team, that you care about the bottom line more than their experience & happiness. It drives good people away, because firing bad apples is way harder than it should be...
I don't disagree with this, but being extra fussy at the interview stage does not mean you can avoid bad hires, or even that you will hire better people on average. Better to be clear about what you expect and serious enough to deal with it if you get it wrong.
If you'll notice, I never talked about any interviewing! :) We were talking about pre-hire as a state. It's just that usually that state and (formal) interviews go hand in hand. Interviews are a poor way to hire in general. I think having water cooler type experiences before people are hired, and doing away with formal interviews would be great. This works amazingly well for the most effective teams--the rich get richer in this way, too. Love talking about this stuff! Have a great day!
In an ideal world both employer and employee would have more time to learn if they are a compatible fit. In practice we have a pretend process where both sides lie to each other and it is only by chance that it works out. I would like to see a world where everyone was more honest about what they expected and where learning that they weren't a match did not mean that one party was wrong.
