Building Block: AI Can Speed Up Hiring. Don’t Let It Rush the Decision

AI is making hiring faster.

It can screen resumes, summarize interviews, identify skills, generate interview questions, and compare candidates in seconds.

That’s useful.

But there’s an important distinction between speeding up the hiring process and speeding up the hiring decision.

I’ve made enough hiring decisions over the years to know the difference.

When you’re short-handed, an open position feels like a problem that needs to be solved immediately. A candidate checks most of the boxes, everyone is busy, and it’s tempting to say, “Good enough.”

That’s usually when trouble starts.

AI can help us gather and organize more information about candidates. It can’t determine whether someone will take ownership when things go wrong, work well with your team, earn a client’s trust, or live your company’s values when nobody is watching.

Those things still require human judgment.

Use AI to eliminate administrative work. Use it to prepare better questions. Use it to make your hiring process more thorough and efficient.

Then slow down for the part that matters most: deciding who joins your team.

Getting the right person a week later is almost always better than getting the wrong person tomorrow.

Building Block: Hiring Slowly Is Still Good Business

In The 100: Building Blocks for Business Leadership, I wrote about a lesson I’d learned the hard way:

“Avoid hasty hires.”

I noted that when we’ve justified hiring someone because of an especially heavy workload, that person might provide short-term relief but fail to work out over the long term. The lesson was simple: take the time to thoroughly evaluate someone before inviting them onto your team.

A decade later, technology has dramatically changed hiring.

The principle hasn’t.

Let AI make the process faster.

Don’t let it make you impatient.