How AI is Transforming How We Hire

The value of publicly available information is going to zero. The value of non-public information is going to increase dramatically. These are two fundamental trends, accelerated and enabled by AI, that will underpin the executive search and broader recruitment industries in ways that most search firms and employers haven't grasped yet, and will lead most search firms to go out of business over the next few years, if they don't transform their processes and their offering.

If this sounds hyperbolic or dramatic, consider the simple example of searching for relevant candidates on a public website like LinkedIn. We certainly do this as part of a multi-channel sourcing strategy at Shortlist Search , and there are indeed ways of doing this creatively and effectively that take a lot of time to train. Books have even been written on clever ways to search for talent on LinkedIn. Multi-hour explainer videos on YouTube have been recorded to teach "sourcing best practices."

But today, an English literate high school student in Manila, for example, who has never recruited before nor stepped foot in a talent market like Nairobi but who has a high learning velocity, can use GPT to get to ~70% of the outcome of what mainstream search firms could historically do, just by using a few thoughtful prompts to get to basically the same candidate list on LinkedIn. It is not hard to imagine (and we have) the LinkedIn integration services that will inevitably emerge in the coming months (not years, but yes, months). In other words, if your primary value to clients is to find candidates on LinkedIn, you'll be out of business, plain and simple.

The good news is that the value of a top-tier search firm has never been in accessing publicly available information. Rather, for those at the top of our game, AI presents the most extraordinary opportunity to increase the value to our clients since the invention of the internet. Simply put, it will enable us to focus our efforts on unearthing and assessing the non-publicly available information about a candidate pool. These include attributes of potential such as candidate integrity, career motivation, culture fit, executive intelligence, and decisions they have taken as a leader that have led to significant organisational outcomes. Those are attributes that cannot be identified by AI and that directly drive organisational performance. AI will also save us time to focus further on the professional context from which a candidate has emerged, answering questions such as, "what was actually happening at their previous employer and what does this tell us about this candidate's ability to thrive in our organisation?". It will also save us time to place even greater weight on blind referencing, where we engage with people who can credibly speak to a candidate's strengths and weaknesses.

Shortlist is actively embedding AI across our search processes, from expanding the scope of our market mapping, accessing diaspora talent in new ways, rapidly and accurately summarising candidate interviews and CV information, and even creating more meaningful proposals to prospective clients.

We believe, perhaps counterintuitively, that AI will also increase the importance of having an in-person presence in the markets in which we hire. Accessing non-public information is often best done over coffee or a long walk in the forest with well-connected and knowledgeable leaders, engaging with a key referral source, or connecting with sector leaders at a conference. We now have team members in 5 countries in Africa, supported by teams in India, the UK, and the US, and we're continuing to hire as fast as we can across Africa and other markets where our clients are growing. In fact, we're betting our business on the assumption that the value of our amazing team will continue to drive our success in the market. They’ll simply have gained AI-driven superpowers, enabling them to focus on the areas where human creativity, knowledge, and intuition matter most—and deliver the greatest value to our clients. The future is bright. 

[This post, by the way, is largely an AI-powered transcription of a voice note I left for myself during a sunrise run in Karura Forest.]  

Simon is a Co-founder and Partner at Shortlist Professionals , and is based in Nairobi.

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