Time & Perspective Quote by Robert Half

In an economy that loves speed, Robert Half is arguing for slowness with teeth. "Time spent on hiring is time well spent" reads like a simple manager-ism, but the subtext is a warning: hurry here and you pay for it everywhere else. Half, who built a recruiting empire, understood that labor isn’t a commodity you can impulse-buy. People come with habits, blind spots, and values that don’t show up in a resume line item, and those hidden traits are what make a team click or quietly combust.

The quote also smuggles in a redefinition of efficiency. Most organizations treat hiring as overhead, something to minimize so the "real work" can begin. Half flips that logic: hiring is the work, because it sets the quality ceiling for everything that follows. A rushed hire doesn’t just miss targets; they multiply meetings, create managerial babysitting, trigger attrition, and poison trust. The time you think you saved comes back as a tax.

Context matters: Half’s career spanned the rise of modern corporate America and professionalized HR. As companies scaled, they needed repeatable processes to reduce risk. This line functions as a justification for rigor - interviews that go beyond charisma, reference checks that aren’t perfunctory, and role definitions that are crisp enough to prevent mismatched expectations.

It’s also self-interested in a revealing way: a recruiter insisting the client slow down. The persuasion works because it reframes patience not as caution, but as an investment with compounding returns.