That Wretched Gut Feel!

As human beings, we sometimes take ages to learn! Especially when it comes to anything emotive, because gut feel – or the more formal term, intuition – is something that is entirely emotive, as it combines a collective of emotions that in a sense we don’t even really understand. And often your gut feel goes against the supposed “facts” that are right in front of you, in particular when it comes to personal feelings about a person, whether it personal or professional. I think we can all think of examples in both fields!

Intuitive decision making is the way people make decisions naturally, without the use of formal tools, processes, or procedures. In business, intuitive decision making is sometimes frowned upon, and many business leaders often require evidential proof that the decision you may be making has merit and has something behind it – figures, analysis, spreadsheets, reports.

So how is this relevant in our field of recruitment?

I’ve written recently about the huge surge of AI in recruitment, and how that is going to completely change and dominate how we bring talent on board into organisations. And how I believe we are in trouble if it takes over what I would refer to as “natural selection” for talent in organisations. That's not saying there is a place for AI in aspects of recruitment, just not replacing what humans do best!

In talking with one of my colleagues, Amanda Scott, recently, we talked about this. When we advertise or search candidates for a role and receive a plethora of applicants, how do we “short list”? Other than the obvious – skills not relevant or lack of experience ?– how is it out of perhaps 60-70 people, we get down to one, two, five who we believe are the right fit? Well, often it’s simple “gut feel”. Amanda maintains “I usually know who is going to get the job once I’ve gone through the CVs and spoken to those I short list”. I’m the same. It’s that wretched gut feel or intuition that comes from years and years of doing this.

Whilst I don’t want to bore people with quotes from experts, there is plenty of research around on studies of experts who make life and death decisions as part of their daily routine. They don’t have time to reference check or validate their decision making. It’s just done automatically on innateness, prior experience, knowledge, intuition. They base their decisions on past experience, familiarity. In other words your intuitive decision making, or gut feel, is often a result of matching situations to relevant past experiences, and quickly using them to draw conclusions. The thinking happens quickly, yes or no. And experts also maintain that you can develop intuitive decision making and focus on decisions specific to your job, company, or personal life, simply by assessment of prior experiences and “cataloguing” them.

And so this applies to business decisions and in particular engaging the most important asset a company has – their people. Personally I have made decisions on people against my gut feeling, and ended up with a “wretched” experience – every time!

As much as AI has advanced and does a great job in some categories, and may eliminate some of the drudgery of process, it will never ever be able to replace the “humanness” that people possess. Some even say that using it in the process could eliminate the best candidate, and a living example may be where remuneration expectations are “programmed” into the AI-elimination process. I can think of two recent examples where AI may have eliminated two very good people who actually got their respective jobs.

So my advice is to be very careful when considering AI as a replacement for the human element having been told how it cuts down human error, time to hire, accuracy, reduces cost etc etc.

Remember what the term “AI” stands for – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE! It’s not natural, gut feel, intuition that comes with a real person making a decision on the real things that make business function, especially on talent. So use AI where appropriate, just not let it take over key decision making.