Recruiting your replacement: natural reflex or strategic mistake?
Who better than the outgoing employee to recruit their successor? Who knows the job and its requirements better than they do? However, while it might seem a good idea on the surface, human biases can lead to imperfect recruitment.
02/12/2026
5 min
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An employee’s departure leads to a loss of explicit and implicit knowledge, a disruption in work routines and a weakening of networks within the company and externally. Very often, it also means the loss of a collective reference point within the organization. For example, in the case of a colleague recognized for their expertise, or who has built up corporate memory over time. This discontinuity leads to a reorganization – either by finding a replacement for the position or by redistributing tasks within existing teams.
Therefore, the idea of involving the departing employee in selecting their successor may seem relevant. As someone with in-depth knowledge of the position and its constraints, they appear to be legitimate players in the succession process. However, this legitimacy should not translate into autonomous decision-making power. It requires a methodological framework, generally provided by the human resource team, to ensure selection criteria are objective and limit the effects of simple reproduction.
Passing on your role without shaping your successor
When an employee leaves their position, they may express a desire to take part in their successor’s selection, which seems legitimate. He or she will have detailed knowledge of the job requirements, the interactions built up over time and the informal aspects of the position. These are often invisible to a newcomer.
However, this process requires a subtle balance, between passing on knowledge without trying to mould, and supporting without constraining the successor. Authentic knowledge transfer is based on the ability to share one’s experience sincerely, without trying to reproduce one’s own profile.
It involves reporting on the successes and difficulties encountered. And identifying the weaknesses of the role, operational constraints and areas of uncertainty. From this perspective, the role of the HR team is to help distinguish between what is specific to the position and what is specific to the individual, so that individual experience does not become an implicit norm. By offering a clear and comprehensive view of the position, the outgoing employee enables their successor to take ownership of the role independently, based on realistic assumptions rather than an idealized representation.
Preventing corporate memory loss
A phenomenon, sometimes referred to as corporate memory loss, corresponds to the silent disappearance of accumulated expertise due to a lack of structured transfer. Without a planned approach and a clear succession plan, the collective memory crumbles, and with it, the organization’s ability to learn and renew itself. The fundamental principle of knowledge transfer is to anticipate.
This should not be triggered by the urgency of an imminent departure. It should be a part of the company’s long-term skills and talent management policies. In organizations with structured HR functions, this planning makes it possible to formalize key skills, identify areas of vulnerability and supervise the participation of the departing employee. When a departure is identified sufficiently in advance, the organization can put in place progressive training and support measures, facilitate a smooth handover of responsibilities and limit any operational tensions.
Beware of the ‘clone’ trap
Numerous studies show that biases – whether human or automated – often lead recruiters, as well as employees directly involved in the selection process, particularly the departing employee, to favor profiles that resemble their own or correspond to models already present in the organization. This can reinforce homogeneity rather than diversity.
When it comes to recruitment, no one is immune to bias and stereotypes. Stereotypes are natural because they are based on heuristics, shortcuts we use to make quick decisions without mobilizing our mental resources. During interviews, 87% of decisions are made in less than fifteen minutes, with the rest serving only to confirm the decision already made. Sociologists call this phenomenon ‘homophily’. This means that we unconsciously tend to recruit people who are like us.
In the context of succession, this mechanism is reinforced by the symbolic significance of the departure: appointing a ‘similar’ successor helps to preserve a reassuring sense of continuity. Over time, this mechanism reinforces homogeneity within an organization, where individuals share the same habitus, which becomes the norm and then an unquestioned status quo.
Beware of bias
Due to conformism and cognitive biases (errors or mental traps in the way we think), organizations miss many talented individuals. Three biases can combine.
The first unconscious mechanism at work is the one that pushes us to only retain only the information that reinforces our beliefs. This is called confirmation bias. When it comes to entrusting our position to someone else, we spontaneously look to those who are like us. The same mannerisms, codes, or way of performing the job: this continuity reassures us and ends up becoming the norm.
Conversely, any different proposal is easily dismissed as an exception, a temporary trial, or even an unnecessary risk. Rather than questioning our attachment to simply reproducing the existing model, we find good reasons to keep it. From that moment on, the challenge is no longer so much to imagine other ways of doing the job as to identify who has the power to decide what, precisely, should not change.
Repetition proves nothing
The second mental trap is called attribution error. Here, we attribute behaviors to personality, whilst forgetting the context. For example, speaking quietly may be interpreted as a lack of confidence, without considering the conditions of the interview (setting, dynamics of the exchange, time for responses, or the interviewer’s attitude). It is not the filter of analysis that is questioned, but the candidate who is assigned a lasting characteristic.
The third bias is the illusion of truth, also known as the mere-exposure effect. As with fake news, a dubious – or even false – statement can appear credible through repetition. The more a statement circulates, the more it becomes ingrained in people’s minds, even when it is based on little evidence.
Over time, these statements become obvious truths. They then influence our judgements and choices, particularly when it comes to entrusting our position to someone else. Without paying attention to it, we favor what corresponds to these widely shared ideas, to the detriment of different but equally relevant options. When it comes to choosing their own replacement, people in positions of authority will often instinctively choose someone who resembles them, convinced that the role requires a specific ‘profile’ or ‘way of being’. It is not that other candidates lack the necessary skills, but rather that these long-held beliefs have become accepted as obvious truths.
So, how can organizations recruit without bias?
Role-playing and skills tests – where candidates are simply asked to show what they can do – are more effective methods of limiting the impact of cognitive biases by focusing the assessment on concrete evidence of expertise. Structured interviews retain the format of a conversation but drastically limit subjectivity. For example, the same questions for everyone, pre-established evaluation criteria, rigorous scoring. A structured interview is therefore less like a discussion and more like a graded oral exam… and that is precisely what makes it so effective.
Replacing someone is not the same as creating a replica
So, is it a good idea to let an employee choose their replacement? This process is not about creating a duplicate. The key is not to reproduce a style or a way of doing things, but to pass on enough knowledge so that the successor can take ownership of the role, perform it differently… and perhaps even improve it.
It all depends on the recruitment intentions. If the aim is simply to fill a vacancy, you will look for the same profile. But if you consider this departure as a transition, then it becomes an opportunity to introduce new skills, a fresh perspective, a different dynamic. But this needs to be accompanied by a clear method and an explicit HR framework.
This article by Professor Elodie Gentina is the English translation of an article originally published on the Conversation France.
