Hiring Isn’t Just About Filling a Seat
Most hiring problems don’t start with resumes—they start long before that.
The real challenge is knowing what you’re actually hiring for. Is it a specific skill set? A personality type? A process you need offloaded? A problem you need solved?
As Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Or as Stephen Covey put it in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you have to begin with the end in mind. If you don’t take the time to clarify what your business truly needs, you’ve already set your hiring process up to fail.
This is where AI becomes more than just a filter. Used intentionally, it helps you audit your business, define what you truly need, and build a process that attracts the right people from the beginning. From designing better job descriptions to screening for alignment with your values, AI isn’t replacing human intuition—it’s enhancing it.
Let’s walk through how that works, step by step.
Step One: Get Clear Before You Hire
One of the biggest hiring mistakes isn’t choosing the wrong person—it’s not knowing what you need in the first place.
Hiring reactively, under pressure, often leads to vague job descriptions, recycled templates, and unclear expectations. That’s how roles get misaligned and how great candidates get overlooked.
This is where AI steps in as a clarity tool. It can analyze your workflows, identify where the actual bottlenecks are, and help you design a role that supports your business where it matters most.
You can even train a custom GPT—like I’ve done—with your core values, your process manual, and your team’s personality insights. That foundation allows the AI to help define not just what you need done, but who would actually thrive doing it.
Step Two: Write Job Descriptions That Attract the Right People
Most job descriptions are either too vague or too rigid. And that leads to two things: underqualified applicants who aren’t a fit, and highly qualified folks who don’t even apply because the description doesn’t speak to them.
With AI tools like Claude or a custom GPT, you can craft job descriptions that are:
- Clear and specific about the outcomes the role is responsible for.
- Written in your brand voice, so candidates know what kind of company they’re walking into.
- Inclusive and resonant, helping you reach a more diverse and aligned talent pool.
- Framed around impact and contribution, not just qualifications and years of experience.
This step alone can radically improve the quality of the applications you receive.
Step Three: Use AI to Screen—But Stay in the Driver’s Seat
Once the resumes start rolling in, the goal isn’t just to move fast—it’s to stay focused. Instead of burning hours reading every line, you can use AI to:
- Summarize resumes and highlight relevant experience.
- Evaluate candidates against the job description and your company values.
- Surface early red flags or signals that might not be obvious at first glance.
- Develop meaningful screening questions beyond the usual “Why do you want to work here?”
In my own process, I use a custom GPT trained on our core values, hiring principles, and culture documents. I upload applicant resumes and cover letters, and the GPT helps me evaluate them based on both skill fit and cultural alignment.
But I don’t stop there.
For first-round interviews, I conduct a recorded Google Meet (with full disclosure to the applicant). Afterward, I upload the transcript to the GPT, which then helps me assess their communication style, how they think, and how they align with our values.
Step Four: Evaluate for Culture Fit, Safety, and Alignment
By the time I’m ready for second interviews, I want to go deeper than skills—I want to understand how someone shows up. That’s where personality assessments come in.
Each finalist completes a DISC profile, Enneagram, and Myers-Briggs assessment. I upload those results into the GPT, and it helps me evaluate not just whether they could do the job, but whether they would enhance our team dynamic.
From there, AI helps me draft second-round interview questions tailored to each candidate’s unique strengths, gaps, and potential friction points.
This isn’t about creating a team of clones—it’s about hiring people who complement each other, challenge the status quo, and align with how we work and lead.
Step Five: Support Onboarding and Retention With AI
Hiring isn’t finished when someone accepts the offer. Onboarding is where you either set someone up to win—or frustrate them into leaving.
With AI, I’ve built systems to make that part easier and more consistent:
- Claude helps me turn our process manual into a customized onboarding plan.
- The GPT generates checklists, SOPs, and day-by-day training flows for each role.
- I can track how people are progressing, see where they’re getting stuck, and refine the process based on real-time feedback.
When new team members feel clear, supported, and aligned, they stay longer. And AI helps make that clarity repeatable—even when I’m not hands-on.
Bonus: Step-by-Step Prompts to Build Your Own AI Hiring Assistant
Here’s a quick-start guide for using AI to enhance your hiring process—from clarity to culture fit:
Step 1: Define the Role Clearly
Prompt:
- “Act as a hiring strategist. Based on the following business description and pain points, what kind of role would best support growth, and what key responsibilities should it include? [Insert business info]”
Step 2: Write the Job Description
Prompt:
- “Write a job description for a [role title] that emphasizes these responsibilities, our team culture, and our company’s core values: [insert values]. Make the tone clear, encouraging, and inclusive.”
Step 3: Evaluate Resumes
Prompt:
- “Evaluate this candidate’s resume for a [role title] position. Compare their skills and experience to this job description: [insert description]. Also consider alignment with these values: [insert values].”
Step 4: Analyze First Interview Transcripts
Prompt:
- “Based on this transcript, summarize the candidate’s communication style, values alignment, and potential strengths/risks for our team culture.”
Step 5: Create Second Interview Questions
Prompt:
- “This candidate has completed a DISC, Enneagram, and Myers-Briggs assessment. Based on their results [insert details], write 3–5 interview questions that explore how they handle collaboration, conflict, and ambiguity.”
Step 6: Build an Onboarding Plan
Prompt:
- “Create a 30-day onboarding plan for a new [role title], including daily and weekly goals, helpful resources, and key cultural integration touchpoints.”
These prompts are flexible and can be tailored to whichever AI tool you’re using. If you’ve trained a custom GPT on your company content, it gets even smarter over time.
The Bottom Line: AI Supports the Process—You Drive the Culture
Smart hiring is about more than speed. It’s about alignment, discernment, and intentional growth. AI can absolutely help you move faster—but only when you’ve done the work to define what matters most to your business and your team.
If you start with clarity, build with intention, and use AI as a trusted partner—not a shortcut—you’ll hire better, onboard smarter, and create a team that can scale with you.
Because in the end, AI can help you find people. But it’s still your job to build a place where the right people want to stay.
