Keep humans at the heart of hiring humans

We keep trying to automate one of the most human things we do…Hiring.

I get it. AI screens faster, removes inconsistency, scales effortlessly. Genuinely useful.

But I’ve sat across from candidates who looked average on paper and turned out to be extraordinary. I’ve seen data perfect hires who quietly destroyed team culture. I have had countless conversations that reveal something no algorithm could have surfaced.

Because here’s the thing about humans, we’re not a list of skills. We’re embodied, emotional, relational. We carry histories. We read rooms. We make meaning together. A team isn’t a headcount. It’s a web of trust built person to person.

Owning a business has taught me that getting culture right isn’t a nice to have. It’s everything. Get it wrong and you feel it in ways no spreadsheet ever captures.

So AI near our hiring decisions? Absolutely not. I won’t even let it pull up a chair. 😄

In fact, we go the other way entirely, every single person on our team meets every potential new hire. Not just the managers. Everyone. Because culture isn’t a leadership decision, it’s a collective one.

When you remove humans from the process of choosing humans, you don’t get objectivity. You get incompleteness. That instinct that tells you, yes this person will make us better.

Simply put, Keep humans at the heart of hiring humans.

📷 snapshot of the legendary humans past/present at Cranleigh STEM, Sustainability & SHEQ Recruitment