We had a conversation with a client today that crystallized something we see all the time: a system administrator who locked everything down so tightly, nobody could actually use the platform.

Her previous admin was obsessed with clean data. Noble goal, bad execution.

The client was drowning in entrance criteria and workflow restrictions—all in service of generating beautiful reports no one trusted, because the system had become unusable.

Classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The Control Paradox

Here’s what happens when you tighten the screws too much: you create entrance criteria for every workflow status transition. Someone can’t move from Point A to Point B without completing seventeen steps that made sense in a conference room but fall apart when actual humans try to use them.

Let’s say you want clean onboarding data. So you create an entrance criterion that prevents anyone from moving to “hired” status until they’ve completed every single onboarding task. Sounds logical.

Then reality hits.

Someone adds new tasks to onboarding that take three weeks to complete. Your new hire needs to start Monday. The system says no. The hiring manager calls you at 7 AM asking why their critical new employee is stuck in digital purgatory.

You’ve optimized for data purity at the expense of actual business needs.

The Data Quality Trap

The pressure usually comes from reporting requirements. Time-to-fill analyses break when people don’t follow the prescribed path. Recruiters skip steps or jump statuses, and suddenly your metrics look like abstract art.

But here’s the thing: human beings don’t behave logically. Talent acquisition especially requires flexibility to get people started without being overly attached to the exact sequence of administrative tasks.

When you over-engineer the system to force logical behavior, you often get the opposite result. The system becomes so complex that only one person understands how it works. When that person leaves, you’re left with a beautiful, incomprehensible machine that nobody dares touch.

The IT Problem

This gets worse when someone from IT runs the talent acquisition system without understanding how recruiting actually works. They see workflow diagrams and think: “This should be systematic and predictable.”

The problem is, recruiting is neither systematic nor predictable in a way that would satisfy IT.

You might need someone to start immediately while still completing background checks. You might need to fast-track a critical hire while maintaining compliance. You might need to accommodate a thousand edge cases that never made it into the original workflow design.

Technical expertise without domain knowledge creates brittle systems that snap under real-world pressure.

When Users Revolt

Push too hard on system restrictions and users will find ways around them. They’ll start keeping spreadsheets. They’ll develop shadow processes. They’ll do their real work outside the system and then perform data entry theater to satisfy the reporting requirements.

At that point, your beautifully controlled system is generating garbage data anyway. You’ve achieved the worst of both worlds: frustrated users and unreliable reports.

Nobody wants to spend their day clicking through bureaucratic hoops instead of connecting with candidates. When the system becomes the enemy, people will find creative ways to defeat it.

The Goldilocks Administrator

The right system administrator for talent acquisition needs a particular combination of skills.

They need to be thorough enough to maintain data integrity but flexible enough to accommodate how work actually gets done. They need to understand both the technical capabilities of the platform and the practical realities of recruiting.

Most importantly, they need self-awareness. They have to recognize their own tendencies toward either over-control or under-control and actively seek feedback to find the middle ground.

This person stays connected to end users. They understand what it feels like to use the system daily. They’re responsive to feedback about pain points and willing to adjust configurations based on real usage patterns rather than theoretical ideal processes.

The Real Goal

You’re not trying to create a system that users love. That might be impossible given the inherent constraints of any systematic process.

You’re trying to create a system that serves both the need for good data and the reality of how people actually work. A system that provides necessary structure without becoming a barrier to productivity.

This requires ongoing attention. Regular check-ins with recruiters and hiring managers. Willingness to bend rules when the situation calls for it. Recognition that the best system is often the one that knows when to get out of its own way.

Finding the Sweet Spot

The balance between too loose and too tight isn’t a one-time decision. It’s an ongoing conversation between system requirements and user needs.

Your entrance criteria should protect essential processes without creating unnecessary friction. Your workflow should guide behavior without forcing rigid adherence to steps that don’t always make sense.

The goal is a system that people can work with effectively. One that accommodates the messy reality of talent acquisition while still generating reliable data for decision-making.

In our System Admin Insights community discussions, the administrators who get this right share a common trait: they understand that flexibility and control aren’t opposites. They’re dance partners.

The best systems feel invisible to users most of the time and only assert themselves when it truly matters. They bend without breaking. They guide without constraining.

That’s the sweet spot. Not too loose, not too tight. Just right for the actual humans who have to use them every day.

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