Jun 11, 2026 · 28 min · 10 segments
Okay, Actually is a podcast for people who are working hard and starting to wonder if the problem is them. It's not. Each episode, we dig into what's truly broken and figure out how to build a…
Jennifer D'AgostinoGuest
Karen DoakHost
The role opens, the job description goes out, and it's usually a version of the last one, maybe with a few new lines added by someone in comp.
And six months later, the wrong person is in the seat, or the right person left, or the role got redefined three times and nobody told the recruiter.
And the assumption, almost universally, is that something went wrong in the search.
But what almost nobody asks is, did we actually know what we were looking for before we started? Did we know what problem this role was supposed to solve? Did we know what the team needed versus what we lost? Did we write a job description that reflected reality, or did we write a wish list and call it a job description? I'm Karen Doak, and this is OK Actually.
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The role opens, the job description goes out, and it's usually a version of the last one, maybe with a few new lines added by someone in comp.
And six months later, the wrong person is in the seat, or the right person left, or the role got redefined three times and nobody told the recruiter.
And the assumption, almost universally, is that something went wrong in the search.
But what almost nobody asks is, did we actually know what we were looking for before we started? Did we know what problem this role was supposed to solve? Did we know what the team needed versus what we lost? Did we write a job description that reflected reality, or did we write a wish list and call it a job description? I'm Karen Doak, and this is OK Actually.