The economics of being out of someone's league.

Recruiting and dating have the same problem: a huge number of people trying to find the perfect match in a sea of noise. Both markets are wildly inefficient.

And, I think, for the same reason.

Let me start with dating. Bear with me – this is my model of "dating economics", and like any economic model, it's deliberately crude, not a worldview.

We'll assume that every person, male and female, can be scored on a scale from 1 to 10. Yes, attractiveness is partially subjective, but people agree with each other far more than "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" suggests – within and across cultures. Look at peak Brad Pitt and you'll see an attractive man (also to me, as a fellow male).

Second, we'll assume the two sides of the market behave differently. That's what the data from dating apps shows:

• Men rate women on a normal bell curve, then send two-thirds of their messages to the top third of women. Wide net, aimed high.
• Women rate 80% of men as below average, then message slightly above that curve. Narrow net, aimed higher.

(And before anyone feels attacked: the same research shows both men and women pursue people roughly 25% more desirable than themselves. Everybody aims up. The sides just differ in how wide they cast the net.)

Simplified for the model:

1. Men are open to engage with anyone ±2 of their own 1-10 score.
2. Women are open to engage with someone above their own score.

A few scenarios:

• You're a male 6. You're open to the 4–8 range. But most women in that range don't want to engage with you, because they're aiming higher.
• You're a female 8. You're interested in men in the 8–10 range, ideally 10s.
• You're a male 10. Every woman wants to engage with you.

Because female interest shifts upward, the market breaks:

1. A lot of men at the bottom of the scoreboard don't get to engage with anyone. Statistically, there just aren't many women interested in them.
2. This isn't great for women either: many women are now competing for a few high-scoring men. All women 5 and up want the 8-10 men; all women 8 and up want 10s only.
3. And if you're a male 10, you could date any woman. Why commit to one?

(Again: this is a model, not reality. Monogamy is a good thing for most people from what I can see. Don't believe me? Read this book.)

So we end up here:

1. Many women compete for few men.
2. Those men don't want to commit.
3. The men who want to commit are there, but women don't want to engage with them.
4. Nobody finds a partner.

Great. How beautifully inefficient.

What would be efficient is if a male 8 dated a female 8, a male 6 dated a female 6, and so on.

This used to work in markets with limited choice. In a village with maybe ~10 eligible partners, everybody has an overview of the entire market. The market regulates itself, matches are made.

But in a market with infinite options?

Everybody thinks they can do better.

Sound familiar? Now swap "partner" for "job".

In the most efficient job market imaginable, each applicant would apply to exactly one job, and each job would receive exactly one – the perfect – application.

That, of course, doesn't work, because the market is intransparent. Nobody knows all the jobs out there, and no hiring manager knows all the applicants.

So it's the opposite: everybody applies to every job they deem somewhat suitable. The male equivalent of hitting on every woman ±2 of your score.

But companies, like the women in our model, are picky. They can't hire everyone; usually they'll hire exactly one person. So they set their standards high and have to filter through a high number of applicants.

And if you need to filter a ton of material, you start with a very rough filter. There's no point pushing rocks through a coffee filter.

On dating apps, this is the infamous height filter. (If you're a guy below 180cm, you're s**t out of luck on dating apps, I hear.) On the job market, it's a filter for high-signal logos – consulting, investment banking, the right universities.

From there, the filter gets finer. Just because a candidate worked at Bain & Company doesn't mean they're good; but the likelihood is higher, just like women tend to find tall men more attractive than short men.

That's where interview processes come in. A great candidate passes all the interviews and gets an offer.

Usually, though, that candidate doesn't get one offer. They get many. Because they're obviously attractive to a lot of companies.

Now they have commitment issues, just like the male 10s. And the exact same mechanic unfolds:

1. The 10s among the applicants get all the offers, and pick the hottest company.
2. Every other company that competed for this candidate walks away empty-handed and would have to settle for "less".
3. But they've been taught that you don't "settle" for a candidate, so they keep competing for talent that's out of their league.
4. They don't hire. And the many eligible candidates who would get the job done just fine don't get an offer either.
5. Everybody loses.

How do you solve this?

From a hiring perspective:

1. Become the coolest company out there (hard).
2. Realize you might not be in a position to hire the hottest candidate out there, and that other people will also get the job done (easier).

Here's what ignoring #2 looks like.

I received an inbound lead last year. They were desperate: "We've been looking to fill this position for four months and we just can't find anyone."

Weird, I thought. Founder's Associate positions don't usually stay vacant that long.

Ten minutes later, I understood. They were looking for someone with 2–3 years at a top-tier consultancy or investment bank, from an elite university, willing to work long hours. The pay: 70k max. The location: a B-tier German city, 5 days in office. The industry: heat pumps.

In dating terms, their offer was a 6 and they were looking for a 10. This ain't gonna work. Maybe, just maybe, you'd find someone to work under those conditions if you're building cutting-edge tech, with renowned investors and outstanding traction.

The thing is: they would've been just fine with someone from a Tier 3 consultancy (or just someone with startup experience, which I'd always recommend over consulting experience) and an ordinary university. You're selling heat pumps, not rockets.

I'm trying to practice this myself. I'm hiring right now at Generalyst. I'm really good at attracting talent for my clients (many of which are hot companies), but not so good at attracting talent to my own company.

Which makes sense: I'm not building an a16z-backed foundation model company, nor am I trying to get all the press for raising one gazillion € at a valuation of 10X that without a single euro in profit.

But that's okay. Because the work I need done isn't rocket science either. I just want someone who's very good at what I'm looking for (recruitment), fits the company philosophy, and is a blast to work with. Competence can be found in many ways. That still isn't easy, but I'm open to hiring people who don't have the A+++ pedigree so many founders are looking for.

And I'm pretty sure there are people out there who believe Generalyst is the coolest company out there (besides me, of course).

Now, the candidate perspective:

1. Become the most attractive candidate on the market (hard).
2. Apply to companies that fit your pedigree (easier).
3. Find the company where you, and only you, can solve their problem (also hard, but effective).

On #2: if you have a very average CV, it’s probably pointless to apply to become the Chief of Staff at Anthropic. To get that position, you have to have an absolute elite background, and 99.9% of people don't have that.

Or, you find startups that match your pedigree. They're either still unknown because they're super early, or struggling to raise a round despite good fundamentals, or just not hyped (as is the case for many highly profitable bootstrapped companies). They have less candidate inflow, so they're willing to look at less-prolific profiles. Ideally.

But #3 is the one I like most: finding problems you're uniquely good at solving based on your strength profile.

Right now, for example, I'm hiring a Founding Customer Success person for an early-stage logistics startup. They have a high bar, as usual. Which is okay – they have good traction.

But I found a candidate who, while not clearing the "ordinary" markers of excellence, is the perfect fit.

What does a CSM in logistics need?

• Customer obsession and the willingness to go the extra mile
• General people skills
• The ability to speak the customer's language and understand their problems

This candidate worked in hospitality for a long time – the best school for people skills and customer obsession. Then he took a job in logistics and worked in that field for a few years. He doesn't match the job description on paper, but he's a fantastic fit for the job (culture notwithstanding, of course).

I think this works in dating too.

There are many ways to be hot.

On dating apps, conventionally hot wins. But who says you have to date on dating apps? While I wouldn't recommend it, LinkedIn seems to be a hot dating spot these days. LinkedIn hot and dating app hot are not the same thing.

You can also put yourself into situations where your qualities shine. Not conventionally attractive, but a great musician? There's a market for that. Super athletic? Go do HYROX and find your partner there.

Find the smaller subsets of the market where you'd be considered hot.

In the end, the best strategy is to re-create the village: an environment with limited choices. n = 1 is totally sufficient if it's the right 1 for you.

Finding that is the challenge, and for most people, playing the ordinary game of job applications or dating apps just doesn't work.

Find the game you're good at, and just play that.

The rest will follow.

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