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? 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?