For when ‘they just felt right’ doesn’t feel so right anymore…
It starts innocently enough. A CV lands. The interview feels good. You get a decent handshake, some eye contact, and a bit of shared banter about the football or family dogs. They feel right. They’re in.
Fast forward a few months, and you’re quietly wondering if you missed something. Not a disaster, exactly. But not quite what you hoped for either. Maybe they’re struggling to manage the team. Maybe the shine wore off after week two. Maybe you’re back to quietly stepping in again.
Hiring with gut instinct is fast, familiar, and often feels like a strength. Especially in a business built on trust, loyalty and hard-won experience. But it can also be a blind spot.
Because the higher the stakes, the less reliable gut instinct becomes.
Instinct is not a strategy.
There’s a confidence that comes with trusting your instincts: it cuts through the admin, speeds up the process, and it can absolutely play a role in how you choose people.
But when instinct is the only thing driving decisions, it leaves too much to chance.
Instincts are built on your own preferences and experiences. That’s fine when picking lunch or deciding on a new coffee machine. Less fine when shaping the leadership of a growing team.
At best, instinct-only hiring leads to a few underwhelming choices or getting it right to the same degree that a random guess would. At worst, it creates deeper cracks in performance, culture, and morale that take months to surface and even longer to fix.
The hidden cost of guesswork
One mis-hire doesn’t just knock confidence. It quietly chips away at the business.
- Time and energy spent onboarding the wrong person
- Disruption to teams and morale
- Exit costs and re-hiring expense
- Missed opportunities for growth or improvement
- And a subtle but growing sense of frustration
It doesn’t mean people are being careless. Often, it’s the opposite. Many leaders care so much that they rely heavily on their own judgment, thinking it will protect them from making a mistake. But good people decisions need a teensy more than that.
Smarter decisions (without the red tape)
I’m not suggesting that you do what one of my first bosses did when she wanted some more rigour to her selection process i.e ask her interviewees to take a graphology test *
Nor am I suggesting adding layers of bureaucracy or burying your team under forms. But instead are going to suggest some simple tools that sharpen your decisions and reduce the chance of a poor fit.
Here are some light-touch ways to get smarter with how you hire, promote and retain people:
- Create a basic scorecard
Decide on the three or four things that truly matter for the role. Not just generic phrases like ‘good communicator’ or ‘team player’, but things like ‘can give clear feedback under pressure’ or ‘builds trust quickly with clients’. Score every candidate against the same criteria. Patterns emerge fast. - Ask for examples, not hypotheticals
Behavioural questions like “Tell me about a time you…” are far more useful than “What would you do if…”. People’s actual past behaviour tells you much more than what they say they would do. - Don’t do it alone
Bring in a second pair of eyes for interviews. It helps balance bias and gives another perspective, especially useful when you’re hiring into senior roles or unfamiliar areas. - Reflect on past hires
Keep a light-touch log of who you’ve hired and how it worked out six months later. Look back at your notes. Were there early signs you missed? Did your favourites always perform best? It’s a useful exercise for improving your own judgement over time.
When people decisions are based on clarity rather than just chemistry, the likelihood of your newbie succeeding skyrocket. There’s science * to support this and everything!
You build teams with more consistency. Leaders are more confident in their roles. The culture strengthens because it’s not resting on the shoulders of just you. And yes, it saves time and money in the long run too.
Gut feel should still be in the room. It just shouldn’t be running the show.
If you want to chat about boosting your hiring strategy, then drop us a line at hello@thehrhub.co.uk or call 0203 951 1208.
Not a phone or email kind of person? Grab my book, The MAGIC of HR, for more practical tips to build a culture that actually works.
* Honestly, it still amazes me that I ‘passed’ that test, despite having the handwriting of a 5 year old. But what can I say? I lasted about 9 months – not great either!
