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The Productivity Problem No One Talks About: Working Against Employee Instincts

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The Productivity Problem No One Talks About: Working Against Employee Instincts

By  David Kolbe, CEO, Kolbe Corp

The marketing team wasn’t working, and Sarah was the star hire everyone expected to transform it. Stanford MBA, five years at top agencies, glowing references. The team and the company were data- and process-driven. The Chief Marketing Officer looked forward to Sarah’s new energy and insight to drive fresh analysis.

Sarah had access to all the market data and a budget for gathering whatever else she needed. There were well-established systems to keep the team on track. But nothing changed. Sarah’s proven knack for intuitive insight and bold yet calculated risk-taking was nowhere to be seen.

The CMO wondered what was wrong with Sarah. The truth was, nothing was wrong with her. The problem was that she wasn’t given the chance to use her strengths in simplifying complex problems and experimenting with novel solutions.

This is what happens when you keep hiring smart, capable people but don’t let them use their strengths. Spending months trying to fix them with coaching, training, and performance improvement plans isn’t going to be the solution.

You’re trying to solve the wrong problem.

For decades, organizations have measured two things about employees:

Skills – how smart they are and what training and experience they have

Temperament – how they interact with others and if they’re a culture fit

Both matter. But there’s a third part of the mind that actually drives performance:

Instinctive Strengths – how they naturally take action when solving problems; specifically, how people execute on the tasks of their job (what’s also known as conation)

The Key Factor People Don’t Know

Here’s what’s been missing from most productivity initiatives: they’ve been built on an incomplete understanding of how people actually work.

While Myers-Briggs® tells you whether someone is an introvert or extrovert and CliftonStrength® identifies what energizes them at work, the Kolbe A™ Index tells you how they will take action when free to do things their way.

Some people instinctively need to research thoroughly before acting. Others need to dive in and learn by doing. Neither is right nor wrong, but when you force someone to work against these instincts, productivity collapses.

Sarah wasn’t failing because she lacked intelligence or drive. She was pulled down when she was forced to operate in a way that thwarted her strengths.

The Missing Foundation

I worked with a sales team that was missing every quarterly target despite having experienced reps and solid leads. The Sales Director was convinced his team lacked discipline and follow-through.

The Director was naturally wired to create detailed processes and systematic tracking procedures. His team was full of people who thrived on taking risks and adapting quickly to opportunities—exactly what you need to close deals under pressure.

The Director expected everyone to work like he did, saddling the risk-takers with detailed procedures and constant reporting. They initially followed his systems, which sapped their energy and quickly became counterproductive. Eventually, they gave up and started ignoring the processes entirely, focusing on what actually moved deals forward. He saw this as insubordination. They saw his processes as obstacles to results. The relationship deteriorated while systems broke down.

When Good Teams Produce Poor Results

We made three strategic changes:

– Moved their best innovators into outbound roles where they could prospect and open new accounts, with systematic coordinators ensuring company processes and CRM requirements were handled


– Put process-oriented people in account management roles where they could provide consistent service and systematic follow-up for existing clients


– Created clear handoffs between hunting and farming so each person worked in their natural sweet spot while still being accountable for defined results

The results? The Director stopped feeling like he was fighting the team. People finally understood their different approaches to getting results. Rep satisfaction scores improved significantly. Most importantly, the team exceeded the next quarter’s targets.

The Solution That Actually Worked

You’ve been addressing surface-level behaviors instead of understanding the fundamental ways people operate. It’s like treating a fever without diagnosing the infection.

Once you understand how someone instinctively approaches problems, you have new, durable solutions to problems that seemed unsolvable:

– Leadership development actually sticks when it aligns with natural strengths

– Change management initiatives become easier and smoother when they adapt to how people naturally handle change

– Team collaboration improves when people understand each other’s approaches

Why Your Current Solutions Keep Failing

Leadership Development That Actually Develops

Before investing in more leadership training, understand how your emerging leaders naturally approach problems. Some instinctively drive innovation and change. Others naturally stabilize and improve existing systems. Both are valuable, but they need different development paths.

Making Distributed Work Actually Work

Remote collaboration fails when you force everyone to work the same way. Some people need detailed planning and structure to be effective remotely. Others thrive with flexibility and autonomy. Design systems that accommodate both styles instead of fighting against them.

Hiring for Performance, Not Interviews

Start hiring people whose instinctive problem-solving approach fits what the job actually requires. Which marketing role needs breakthrough innovation? Don’t hire the thorough researcher who wants to analyze every data point just because they have impressive credentials.

What This Means for Your Biggest HR Challenges

Start with your most persistent productivity problems—the teams that seem stuck, the high-performers who suddenly plateau, the conflicts that keep recurring despite intervention.

Instead of asking “What training do they need?” ask “Are we tapping into people’s strengths?”

Look at Sarah’s story. Once her manager understood she was built to simplify and innovate, they restructured her role. She became the catalyst that drove the team to break away from analysis paralysis and risk aversion. Unshackled, she fulfilled her promise and became the team’s greatest asset.

This doesn’t mean letting people do whatever they want. Leaders still define deliverables and hold people accountable for outcomes. The freedom is in how people achieve those defined results, not whether they achieve them.

A Simple Place to Start

You’ve been trying to change people instead of understanding them. You’ve been building productivity solutions on an incomplete foundation.

As you navigate leadership challenges, distributed teams, and pressure to deliver more with less, here’s what remains constant: people still need to solve problems and make decisions. The question is whether you’re working with their instinctive problem-solving abilities or against them.

When you align roles with how people are naturally wired to act, those persistent productivity problems finally start solving themselves.

The Bottom Line

About David Kolbe

David Kolbe, CEO of Kolbe Corp, has lived and breathed the Kolbe Concept® his whole life. He is an author, speaker, and visionary behind many of Kolbe’s products and innovations. He is known for his ability to help business leaders unleash innovation through their people. David has assisted thousands of professionals through seminars and speaking engagements on topics such as hiring, organizational design and team building. His expertise in legal, financial, intellectual property and management issues gives him an edge when turning innovation into profit. David’s lasting mark on Kolbe Corp began with helping to develop the original algorithm for the company’s flagship Kolbe ATM Index. Along with Kolbe Corp President Amy Bruske, David penned Do More, More Naturally, the go-to guide for effortless success.

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Leading the Async Revolution: An HR Leader’s Guide to Cultural Transformation

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Leading the Async Revolution

An HR Leader’s Guide to Cultural Transformation

By

Jim Coughlin

Founder at Remotivated

How forward-thinking HR professionals are spearheading the shift to asynchronous work cultures and why your organization can’t afford to wait

HR leaders are often the unsung heroes of workplace transformation. While executives debate strategy and managers focus on execution, we’re the ones tasked with the delicate art of cultural evolution. Today, one of the most critical transformations facing our profession is guiding organizations toward asynchronous-first cultures – and the window for competitive advantage is rapidly closing.

At Remotivated, we help organizations navigating this transition, and we’ve found that the most successful transformations aren’t driven by technology adoptions or policy mandates. Rather, they’re led by HR professionals who understand that async-first culture is fundamentally about reimagining how humans collaborate at their best.

The HR Leader's Dilemma: When "Always On" Becomes Always Wrong

Here’s a scenario that probably sounds familiar: Your CEO proudly announces the company’s commitment to “flexible work,” which sounds great on the surface. However, your employee engagement scores are plummeting. Exit interviews reveal exhaustion, not freedom. The culprit? A culture that treats remote work like in-office work.
The problem isn’t where people work – it’s how we’re asking them to work. Most organizations have a digitized synchronous culture rather than designing an asynchronous culture. The difference is profound, and as HR leaders, we’re uniquely positioned to recognize and address it.

Why HR Must Champion Asynchronous Culture (Not Just Remote Policies)

1. Employee Well-being at Scale

Traditional metrics focus on what we can easily measure: response times, meeting attendance, seat time logged. But asynchronous culture optimizes for what actually matters: meaningful contribution, cognitive load management, and sustainable performance. HR leaders who champion async-first approaches report significant improvements in employee satisfaction scores and a drastic reduction in burnout indicators.

2. Inclusive Excellence by Design

Asynchronous work isn’t just accommodating – it’s optimizing for human diversity. Parents managing school pickup, neurodivergent team members who process information differently, introverts who contribute better in writing – async culture doesn’t just include these voices, it amplifies them. This isn’t about making exceptions; it’s about designing systems that bring out everyone’s best work.

3. Talent Access Multiplier

When your culture operates asynchronously, geography becomes irrelevant. But more importantly, lifestyle becomes irrelevant. Suddenly, your talent pool includes incredible people who previously couldn’t fit into rigid synchronous expectations. The organizations that figure this out first will have unprecedented access to top talent.

The Implementation Framework: Beyond Policy Changes

Phase 1: Audit Your Synchronous Assumptions

Before changing tools, change thinking. Conduct an honest assessment of which collaborative activities truly require real-time interaction. Most HR leaders are shocked to discover that 60-70% of meetings could be handled asynchronously with better outcomes.
Start by tracking these metrics for 30 days:

  • Meeting frequency and duration per team
  • Response time expectations (stated vs. cultural reality)
  • Decision-making speed for different process types
  • Employee energy levels throughout typical work weeks

Phase 2: Design Communication Hierarchies

Create clear guidelines for when to use alternate communication methods. This isn’t about restricting communication – it’s about making it intentional. Establish protocols that default to asynchronous methods while preserving space for synchronous connections when it adds genuine value.

Phase 3: Train Managers as Culture Champions

Middle management makes or breaks async transformation. They need specific skills: writing clear context-full messages, managing performance based on outcomes rather than activity, and creating psychological safety for team members who contribute differently.

Measuring Success: New Metrics for New Culture

Traditional HR metrics weren’t designed for asynchronous culture. Consider measuring items like:

  • Contribution Quality Index: Are people delivering their best work, or just responding quickly?
  • Deep Work Protection Rate: How much uninterrupted focus time are team members actually getting?
  • Decision Velocity: How quickly do decisions happen (not how quickly meetings get scheduled)?
  • Cultural Alignment Score: Do employee behaviors match stated async values?

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

The “Async Theater” Trap: Organizations that adopt async tools but maintain synchronous expectations. This creates the worst of both worlds – more platforms to monitor without the benefits of thoughtful, time-shifted communication.

The Documentation Excuse: Teams that resist async communication because they “don’t have time to document.” This reveals a fundamental misunderstanding – async communication becomes your documentation.

The Equity Illusion: Assuming that making async communication available makes it equitable. Without intentional culture design, async tools often amplify existing communication hierarchies rather than disrupting them.

The Competitive Reality

Organizations that successfully implement asynchronous-first cultures aren’t just improving employee satisfaction – they’re fundamentally outcompeting synchronous organizations. They make decisions faster, access better talent, and scale more efficiently.

The question isn’t whether your organization will eventually adopt asynchronous practices. The question is whether you’ll lead this transformation or be forced into it by competitive pressure.

Your Next Steps as an HR Leader

  1. Assess Your Current State: How much of your organization’s collaboration actually requires real-time interaction?

  2. Build Internal Champions: Identify managers who already work well asynchronously and learn from their practices.

  3. Start Small, Think Big: Pilot async approaches with willing teams before organization-wide rollouts.

  4. Invest in Skills Development: Async culture requires new competencies, particularly in written communication and outcome-based performance management.

The future belongs to organizations that can harness human potential without constraining human rhythms. As HR leaders, we have the opportunity, and responsibility, to design remote cultures where everyone can do their best work, on their own terms, together.


Want to dive deeper into implementing asynchronous practices? Explore this comprehensive guide to asynchronous work benefits for detailed strategies and tools that successful remote-first teams utilize to thrive.

Jim Coughlin is the Founder at Remotivated. Remotivated helps organizations build remote work cultures that actually work. Through their certification programs and consulting services, they help companies ensure sustainable, productive, and inclusive remote-first operations.

Decoding Vague Feedback: What Recruiters Really Mean When They Say “Not the Right Fit”

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Decoding Vague Feedback

What Recruiters Really Mean When They Say “Not the Right Fit”

By

Margaret Buj

Global Talent Acquisition Leader and Interview Coach

You nailed the interviews (or so you thought). The conversations flowed, you came prepared, and you left with a good feeling. Then the email arrives:

“Thanks for your time – you were a strong candidate, but we’ve decided to move forward with someone else who’s a better fit.”

Frustrating, right?

As a recruiter and interview coach with two decades of experience, I’ve seen this scenario unfold hundreds of times. Candidates are left in the dark, wondering:

What does “not the right fit” actually mean?

And more importantly – what can I do differently next time?

The truth is, “fit” is often a polite umbrella term we use to mask a more specific reason the candidate wasn’t selected. Sometimes it’s about skills. Sometimes it’s about communication or chemistry. And sometimes, it’s not about you at all – it’s about internal dynamics, team balance, or shifting hiring priorities.

Let’s decode the most common vague rejection phrases and what they might actually mean behind the scenes – along with what you can take away from each.

1. “We’re moving forward with someone who’s a stronger fit.”

👉 Translation: They likely found a candidate with more relevant experience or clearer alignment to the role’s core responsibilities.

🔍 What to reflect on:

  • Were your examples directly tied to the role’s key deliverables?
  • Could your resume or interview answers have done a better job positioning your impact in similar roles or industries?

✅ What to do next:

  • Make sure your resume and LinkedIn profile clearly demonstrate measurable achievements aligned with the target job.
  • In interviews, use the STAR method to connect your experience directly to the challenges the hiring manager is facing.

2. “We’ve decided to go in a different direction.”

👉 Translation: This could mean a change in role scope, budget constraints, or that they decided to prioritize a different skill set entirely.

🔍 What to reflect on:

  • Did the job or expectations shift during the process?
  • Were there hints the company was rethinking what they needed?

✅ What to do next:

  • Don’t take this one personally – it often has nothing to do with your performance.
  • Follow up politely asking if they see a potential future fit for your background in the company.

3. “We really enjoyed meeting you, but the team didn’t feel it was quite the right match.”

👉 Translation: This may signal a perceived mismatch in communication style, seniority level, or team dynamics.

🔍 What to reflect on:

  • Did you ask questions and engage with multiple stakeholders during the interview?
  • Were there moments you could have connected better to company culture or values?

✅ What to do next:

  • Watch for cultural cues in interviews – do they value brevity? Collaboration? Bold ideas? Mirror what you observe authentically.
  • Consider asking in future interviews: “What does success look like in this team, beyond the technical skills?”

4. “We were impressed but decided to proceed with someone whose experience more closely aligned.”

👉 Translation: You may have been slightly overqualified, underqualified, or just came from a different industry or environment.

🔍 What to reflect on:

  • Did you bridge the gap between your past experience and the specific demands of the role?
  • Were you able to show how your past roles prepared you to succeed here?

✅ What to do next:

  • Customize your pitch and resume to emphasize relevant experience.
  • In interviews, be proactive in addressing the “leap” – show you understand the business and how you’ll add value from day one.

5. “It was a tough decision - we had a lot of great candidates.”

👉 Translation: This might be true! But it can also mean someone else had a slight edge in experience, executive presence, or internal advocacy.

🔍 What to reflect on:

  • Did you make your value obvious and memorable?
  • Did you build rapport with the interviewers or leave them with a clear sense of what it’d be like to work with you?

✅ What to do next:

  • Ask for feedback — not everyone will give it, but it’s worth asking.
  • Stay connected. I’ve seen many candidates re-interviewed and hired later, especially when they followed up graciously.

Summary: It’s Not Always You

Hiring isn’t a perfect science. Sometimes the internal candidate got the job. Sometimes the role was paused. And sometimes, you were genuinely excellent – but someone else was a slightly better puzzle piece.

When you hear “not the right fit,” take a breath. Then take action: reflect, refine your approach, and stay open. Clarity is power – and with the right tools and insight, your next opportunity will be an even better fit for you.

Margaret Buj is a Global Talent Acquisition Leader and Interview Coach with two decades of experience hiring top talent across EMEA, LATAM, and the US. She has led hiring across engineering, product, marketing, and G&A at companies including Expedia, VMware, Cisco, Microsoft, Box, Typeform, and Mixmax.

Margaret is also a Career Success Manager at Kadima Careers and the founder of Interview Coach UK, where she’s coached over 1,000 professionals on landing jobs, negotiating salaries, and advancing their careers. Her insights have been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Fox Business, and Financial Times, and she has been recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice.

She offers 1:1 coaching, group programs, and interview training for hiring managers. Learn more at interview-coach.co.uk or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Gen Z Is Doing Things Differently. That’s a Good Thing.

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Gen Z Is Doing Things Differently. That’s a Good Thing.

By

Kirk Offel

CEO of Overwatch Mission Critical

Gen Z is the first generation that doesn’t trust the promise of college, doesn’t blindly adopt the latest tech, and doesn’t vote the way we expect them to. And that might be the most hopeful thing about them.

Gen Z is Rejecting the Smartphone Life

The negative impacts of smartphones and social media on mental health are well-documented, and Gen Z understands this better than any other. As the first true digital natives, they grew up surrounded by screens–and now, they’re rejecting them.  

A new survey from Pew Research finds that 48% of teens say that social media has a “mostly negative” effect on people their age, up from 32% just two years ago. A separate Harris Poll survey found that nearly half of Zoomers wish TikTok, Snapchat, and X had never been invented. A full 83% say they’ve taken steps to limit social media use by unfollowing accounts, deleting apps, or disabling notifications. 

Unlike previous generations who embraced new tech uncritically, Gen Z is taking a ‘Goldilocks approach’– not too much, not too little, but just right.

The Political Shift No One Saw Coming

For decades, Democrats have relied on younger voters as a core base of support. But those days appear to be changing. 

In the 2024 election, President Trump lost voters under 30 by only four points, and won young men by 14 points – a dramatic shift from 2020. A Harvard Youth Poll found that 18-24-year-olds identified as more conservative than 25-29-year-olds, a rare reversal in American politics.

Gen Z isn’t following the same political scripts–and that’s reshaping the national conversation.

College Isn’t the Default Anymore

For my generation, Generation X, the path to success ran through a four-year college or military service. But for many, that path ended in debt, disillusionment, and a corporate job that felt more draining than fulfilling. I chose the military, which gave me a mission-focused mindset that led me straight to the technology industry. Gen Z has taken notice. 

Military recruitment is at a 20-year high, breaking recruiting records. Gen Z is exploring alternative career paths–especially in the data center industry, where future-proof, high-paying roles are within reach without a traditional degree. One-in-four students today will graduate with a degree that’s obsolete within two years. In contrast, data centers offer certifications that prepare graduates in six months and help them stay current with rapidly evolving technologies.

Why Data Centers Appeal to Gen Z

With a projected global shortfall of 500,000 qualified data center professionals in the next five years, companies are waking up to the reality that Gen. Z may be the solution they didn’t expect–but desperately need.

This career path offers three key things Gen. Z is looking for:

  1. Six-figure income potential without a costly college degree.
  2. Grit-driven training programs that reward intelligence and perseverance.
  3. Purpose jobs that truly matter to the future of our digital economy.

These young people are not looking for handouts. They want meaningful opportunities to contribute and succeed.

A Generation Poised to Lead

Gen Z is pragmatic, skeptical of old systems, and hungry for purpose. If we meet them where they are–on their terms by offering high-paying, future-proof jobs in fields like digital infrastructure, we might just help them build the kind of future every generation before them only dreamed of. In doing so, they have a real chance to restore what America has lost in recent decades: a strong and vibrant middle class built on work that matters.

Kirk Offel stands at the forefront of the Mission Critical and Data Center industries as the CEO of OVERWATCH Mission Critical. His company offers a unique combination of traditional Strategic Data Center Consulting and innovative full-service, Owner Representation professional services, catering to the Mission Critical and Telecom Industries. Kirk’s journey in this field began in 1995 with his service in the US Navy on the Nuclear Fast Attack Submarine SSN-691, laying the foundation for over two decades of substantial contributions to the industry.

Throughout his career, Kirk has assumed key executive roles in several prestigious organizations, including Medtronic, Active Power, Eaton Corporation, Hewlett-Packard’s Technology Services Consulting practice (EYP), CyrusOne Data Centers, NOVA Mission Critical, and Aligned Data Centers. His diverse experience has enabled him to lead initiatives and drive innovation within these companies.

In addition to his executive pursuits, Kirk is the founder of the Data Center Austin Conference (DC/AC), currently ranked #2 out of all data center industry conferences. This technical summit is dedicated to promoting discovery and collaboration among data center professionals, focusing on addressing the challenges of future capacity needs. This initiative underscores his commitment to fostering community and knowledge sharing in the industry.

Sitting at the Intersection: Recruiting, Coaching & Hiring in a Changing Market

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Sitting at the Intersection

Recruiting, Coaching & Hiring in a Changing Market

By

Margaret Buj

Global Talent Acquisition Leader and Interview Coach

A few months ago, I worked with a mid-level product marketer who had been job searching for months. He was getting interviews – but no offers. After one coaching session, we pinpointed the problem: his examples were outdated, and he wasn’t connecting his work to business impact. Two weeks later, he had two offers on the table.

This kind of disconnect isn’t rare. I see it on both sides of the hiring table, every week – as both a recruiter and a coach.

With nearly 20 years in tech recruiting and 18 years coaching professionals worldwide, I have a rare vantage point: I’m not just advising candidates or helping companies hire – I’m doing both, every single day. That dual perspective has given me a front-row seat to what actually works in hiring – and where companies (and candidates) often go wrong.

 

Here’s what I’ve learnt – and what HR leaders can do to build more effective, inclusive, and high-performing teams in 2025.

Company Mistakes That Drive Great Candidates Away

The biggest issue I see? Disorganised, slow-moving hiring processes.

I’ve watched companies lose A+ candidates because the process dragged on for weeks – or even months — with unclear steps, redundant rounds, and poor communication.

It usually looks like this: a candidate does a screening call, waits two weeks for another interview, then faces a redundant panel. The final interview gets pushed back (again), and by the time the company is ready to make an offer, the candidate has already accepted another one – or quietly walked away.

The irony? These bloated processes don’t lead to better hires – they just increase the odds that your top choices will go elsewhere.

Another common misstep: treating interviews like interrogations.


Hiring is a two-way street. If your process feels adversarial, confusing, or disjointed, your strongest candidates won’t stick around. I’ve seen top engineers and product marketers walk away simply because the experience signaled misalignment or dysfunction.

Then there’s the issue of inconsistent evaluation criteria. I’ve seen companies reject candidates for a skill they later waived for someone else – simply because the interview team wasn’t calibrated. This not only undermines decision quality but can open the door to bias and create distrust in the process.

Finally, many companies over-index on current skills rather than hiring for potential. In fast-evolving industries, frameworks change quickly. The best hires aren’t always the ones who tick every box – they’re the ones who can grow, adapt, and level up with the business.

Candidate Blind Spots HR Doesn’t Always Catch

On the candidate side, the most common issue I see is a lack of adaptability in communication.

For example, a candidate might deliver the same detailed technical walkthrough to an engineering lead and a VP of Product – missing the fact that the VP cares far more about business outcomes. Great candidates adjust their messaging based on the audience, but many don’t realise how crucial that is – and interviewers often miss the mismatch.

Another invisible signal: the quality of questions candidates ask.

Strong candidates don’t just answer well – they’re curious. They ask thoughtful, informed questions about team dynamics, challenges, and strategy. But if your interview rubric focuses only on how candidates perform, not how they engage, you may overlook high-potential talent.

Most interviewers are trained to evaluate answers – not adaptability. But qualities like curiosity, learning agility, and insight are often better predictors of long-term success than polished talking points.

Trends That Are Reshaping Talent Acquisition in 2025

Here’s what I see shaping hiring right now – and how smart HR leaders are responding:

🔹 AI in Hiring: When used well, AI can reduce admin work and time-to-hire by 30–50%. But over-reliance can lead to biased filters and missed opportunities. The best teams are using AI to support, not replace, human judgment.

🔹 Global Talent Pools: Remote and nearshore hiring is no longer about cost savings – it’s about accessing talent you can’t find locally. Countries like Portugal, Estonia, and Costa Rica are emerging as vibrant hubs.

🔹 Skills-Based Hiring: Still underutilised, but extremely effective. Companies that remove rigid degree or industry requirements are accessing deeper and more diverse talent pools – and seeing better results.

🔹 Hybrid & Async Work: Flexibility is now a business imperative. Companies that support async collaboration and hybrid flexibility have lower turnover and higher offer acceptance rates.

🔹 DEI: Forward-thinking organisations are moving beyond compliance. Structured interviews, skills-based assessments, and expanded sourcing are helping reduce bias and improve inclusivity.

What My Dual Perspective Reveals

Because I’m both actively recruiting and coaching, I’m plugged into what candidates value, what frustrates them, and where hiring processes fall short.

I’ve seen companies transform outcomes by making small but strategic changes – like one SaaS firm that streamlined their 6-round process into 3, aligned interviewer expectations, and started providing prep docs to candidates. In six weeks, they filled three key roles and saw offer acceptance rates rise dramatically.

At the same time, I coach professionals every day on how to navigate a competitive market. One client said after working with me: “Your advice completely changed how I approached my interviews – and I landed a role with a 30% salary increase.” Another told me it was “the most practical and useful session I’ve had – far more insightful than what I’ve seen even from LinkedIn themselves.”

These results don’t happen by chance – they happen when hiring is thoughtful, strategic, and responsive to real-world dynamics.

How HR Can Lead Smarter in 2025

The companies thriving today aren’t necessarily the ones with the most tech – they’re the ones using it to amplify human expertise.

🔹Start with clarity. Build hiring processes with clear objectives, structured evaluation, and timely decision-making.

🔹 Invest in adaptability. Train your teams to look for potential, not just pedigree.

🔹 Close the loop. Build feedback systems post-hire so you learn and improve over time.

And above all – don’t lose the human element.

Recruiting is changing fast. But at its core, hiring is still about people making smart decisions about other people. In 2025, that’s where HR can make the biggest impact

Margaret Buj is a Global Talent Acquisition Leader and Interview Coach with two decades of experience hiring top talent across EMEA, LATAM, and the US. She has led hiring across engineering, product, marketing, and G&A at companies including Expedia, VMware, Cisco, Microsoft, Box, Typeform, and Mixmax.

Margaret is also a Career Success Manager at Kadima Careers and the founder of Interview Coach UK, where she’s coached over 1,000 professionals on landing jobs, negotiating salaries, and advancing their careers. Her insights have been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Fox Business, and Financial Times, and she has been recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice.

She offers 1:1 coaching, group programs, and interview training for hiring managers. Learn more at interview-coach.co.uk or connect with her on LinkedIn.