In Part 5 of this continuing story Johan and Alice asked their latest AI model how to rebuild their hiring processes from scratch by benchmarking how the best hiring managers hired the best people, how recruiters found these people and how the strongest candidates changed jobs. Here’s the actual prompt they used and response suggesting Top Grading, Who and Performance-based Hiring as great starting points. Most important, it describes the importance of using AI for massive change, rather than modest efficiency gains.
While you’re at it, why not ask your AI app if it’s a good idea to automate old-fashioned HR ideas and policies or if it’s better to rethink the entire approach. You can use some version of the prompt below. In fact, ask the question twice, first to the base AI model and then to a more advanced reasoning model. The answer will be your AHA moment, too.
Now, here’s how our story unfolds.
“I’ve been reviewing our metrics,” CEO Mark Davidson began, scanning the executive team gathered in the boardroom. “Our Gallup Q12 engagement scores for new hires have been declining for the past 18 months, and first-year turnover for professional staff has crept up to 17%. We’re moving in the wrong direction despite all our tech investments.”
He turned to Alice and Johan from talent acquisition. “We’ve been focused on the wrong things. Every HR update I get talks about cost per hire and time to fill. But where are the metrics on quality of hire? On long-term performance? On business impact?”
Sarah Chen, the CFO, interjected. “Mark’s right. Look at Miles Brady’s logistics group – with over 500 exempt employees, they’re maintaining engagement scores in the 75th percentile and their first-year turnover is just 7%. That’s significantly better than industry standards. And it’s been consistent for three years.”
“That’s why we launched our AI analysis project,” Johan explained. “Instead of just using AI to screen resumes faster, we used it to analyze five years of hiring data across all departments. We looked at performance reviews, engagement scores, retention rates, and promotion velocity. The AI identified distinct patterns in how our most successful hires were sourced and selected.”
Alice picked up the thread. “The AI flagged something interesting – our highest performing hires came through processes that focused on proven accomplishments rather than just matching requirements. When we researched this pattern, we found it aligns with a methodology called Performance-based Hiring. What’s fascinating is that Miles’s group has been naturally following many of these principles.”
Show Me the Money!
“But here’s what we’re missing,” Mark interrupted. “Sarah, I want you to work with HR to develop metrics that capture the business impact of hiring decisions. Not just cost savings, but value creation. If Miles’s group is getting better results, we need to understand the financial implications.”
Sarah nodded. “We need to shift from measuring what we spend on hiring to measuring what we gain from better hires. I can work with Robert’s team to develop proper ROI metrics. In fact, I’m going to a “Moneyball for HR!” seminar I heard about on LinkedIn next week. That might be a good starting point for all of us to attend.”
Robert Martinez, the CHRO, spoke up. “If we can tie hiring to financial outcomes, it could transform how we approach talent acquisition across all professional roles. It’s not just about the logistics group – this needs to become our standard for every exempt position.”
Just then, Alice’s tablet pinged with a Workday notification. “Looking at Miles’s source of hire data, there’s another pattern. Most of his successful hires come from relationship-based sources – employee referrals, internal moves and promotions, and former colleagues. The AI flagged this too – strong professional networks correlate with better hiring outcomes.”
Johan pulled up their implementation plan. “We’ve drafted a 90-day rollout, starting with converting our job descriptions to performance-based formats. These define the job as a series of performance objective rather than a list of skills and experiences. But this isn’t just about rewriting job posts – it’s about fundamentally changing how we define and measure hiring success. Here’s a sample we can look at including the new format for job postings and even how to conduct and score an exploratory phone screen.”
Mark studied the plan and the sample job posting and was blown away. “This isn’t an HR initiative anymore – it’s a business performance initiative. Sarah, please work with Robert’s team to build those value metrics. We all need to understand the full financial impact of better hiring decisions especially hiring managers. This needs to become our competitive advantage and HR and finance need to take the lead on this effort.”
As they left the boardroom, Johan turned to Alice. “You know what’s interesting? The AI didn’t just confirm what Miles was doing right – it helped us understand why it works.”
“And now we’ll be able to get the data to prove it,” Alice added. “This isn’t about making our current process more efficient – it’s about building a better process altogether.”
They had their mandate: transform hiring from a cost center activity into a value creation process. The next ninety days would show whether they could start to scale Miles’s success across the entire organization.
Here’s how to make this story yours:
- Join our “Moneyball for HR!” discussion groupand participate in our sourcing channel profitability study. Early results are eye-opening and we’re happy to share them with you.
- Use the entire Performance-based Hiring suite of toolson your next hiring project.
- Review a draft performance-based job descriptionfor one of your open roles and to see the difference. You can even post it and compare the response to your current results.