"Market Rates in 2024"

Something happened in a client meeting recently that perfectly illustrates what most people get wrong about market rates in 2024. We were discussing a candidate they’d rejected, and the reasons they gave told me everything.

What I’ve noticed over the years is that people dramatically underestimate the human element in hiring. They prepare answers and polish CVs but forget that on the other side of the table is a person with their own pressures, biases, and bad days.

That interviewer who seemed uninterested? Maybe they just found out they’re being restructured. That hiring manager who went silent? Maybe their budget got cut. That HR person who asked strange questions? Maybe they’re following a template they didn’t design and don’t believe in.

This doesn’t excuse poor behaviour, but it explains it. And when you can explain something, you can work with it. You stop getting angry and start getting strategic.

The best candidates I work with have this quality. They’re prepared, yes. Qualified, certainly. But more than that, they’re perceptive. They read rooms. They adapt. They meet people where they are.

So what does this mean for you? It means stop waiting for the process to be fair and start working with what is. It means preparing not just your answers but your mindset. It means treating every interaction as data, not just a pass/fail test.

The people who get ahead in their careers aren’t lucky. They’re not even always the most talented. They’re the ones who figured out how the game works and played accordingly. Not cynically. Not manipulatively. Just smartly.

You can do the same. It starts with dropping your assumptions and opening your eyes to what’s actually happening in every interview room, every hiring decision, every career move. The patterns are there. Once you see them, you can work with them.

That’s not gaming the system. That’s just being smart about your career.