Stop hiring on ‘instinct’
Relying on your gut to make hiring decisions isn’t bold or gutsy, it’s lazy and negligent, writes Filip Pesek
How often do you hear managers say that they “went with their gut”? It’s a phrase wheeled out for a whole range of decision-making reasoning. And it sometimes pays, but when it doesn’t, it’s quietly brushed away… Unless it applies to recruitment. It’s hard to hide a bad hire. Especially when so much emphasis is put on the value of getting the right team. So, why isn’t this reflected in the average recruitment process?
How most founders actually hire
A CV gets skimmed. Someone comes in for an interview and says the right thing. You drive home thinking, I really liked them. And they get the job. You would not make any other business decision based on such limited consideration. But someone who is about to touch every part of your business? Sure. Because your instinct said so.
In reality, you wanted to avoid the work.
Hiring properly means understanding not only the behaviours and skills that the job needs, but the sort of person your team needs. And you can’t ascertain that with a quick flick through a CV or what your gut tells you over coffee. Because instinct isn’t objective.
You can try to be as open as you like, but if you rely on your gut, you’ll still choose the people that you’re personally drawn to, rather than the ones who will be good at the job and bring genuine value to your team. Because how can you possibly know what that looks like if you haven’t put the work in to find out before arranging an interview?
The CV is dead
CVs have been the backbone of the recruiting process for decades, to the point that professional CV writing has become a lucrative business proposition in its own right. And that’s the problem. CVs have stopped telling us anything other than what someone says they’ve done. It’s self-publicity and nothing more. The fact checking is down to you. But the chances are that you’re not doing it.
For me, there are better approaches. If I want to find out how someone communicates, asking them to record a two-minute video telling me about themselves and why they think they would bring value to my business will always tell me more.
Can they make a simple argument? Can they explain themselves? Can they communicate clearly? Do they understand what we are actually hiring for?
Stop trying to beat AI
And then there is the AI issue. Everyone seems to be asking how we can stop candidates using AI to complete an application assessment. But that’s the wrong question. Of course, they are going to use AI. So am I. So are you. So will anyone else you employ.
AI is a tool that’s there to be used. In fact, it’s a useful skill set to have. But you want to know about the person, so test for something that AI cannot easily provide. If I am hiring a salesperson, for example, I might ask them to record a 10-minute video explaining their sales philosophy. They can use AI to help write it. I genuinely don’t care. Because later, I sit down with them and ask questions about what they said. That’s the test. If it’s their philosophy, they’ll be able to chat about it. If it’s not, it becomes pretty obvious pretty fast.
For an executive assistant, I might do something completely different, like a live thinking puzzle. Three minutes. No laptop, calculator or AI. How many taps are sold in London in a year? How many tennis balls fit in an aeroplane? I’m not looking for the right answer and I’m not testing whether they know the number. I’m simply listening to how they think when they have no data, no preparation and no tools they can hide behind. That’s what matters to me because half of what lands on an assistant’s desk arrives with no clear answer attached.
Take the time
In my company, hiring takes around six weeks. It is slow. But that’s because the only thing that really works is taking the time to run people through the whole funnel and refusing to skip steps. And even then, you can still be wrong. A great hire can leave because life happens. They fall in love, move to Tahiti and decide to do something completely different. That’s not necessarily a hiring failure. It’s doing everything you reasonably could to work out whether this person was right for the job at the time of hire.
Hiring on instinct feels ballsy. Because it shows that you’re decisive. And when it goes right, you can preen. But when it risks your team dynamic, it’s honestly nothing more than laziness.
Filip Pesek is the founder and CEO of DonnaPro, a European executive assistant agency for CEOs and founders, and a bestselling author