The Jens Heitland Show, Episode 242

The Quiet Cost of Unstructured Hiring (en)

In this podcast, Jens Heitland spoke with Christian Wastlhuber about recruitment as a human system, not an administrative one.
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Christian brings an unusual perspective shaped by his background in Egyptology and years spent inside complex organizations, observing how hiring decisions actually form.We explore why unstructured processes slowly replace clarity with interpretation, and what happens when judgment relies on memory, instinct, and delay. The conversation looks at data-driven recruitment beyond dashboards, focusing instead on role clarity, comparable interviews, ownership, and the quiet consequences that emerge when structure is missing.

This is a reflective look at judgment, systems, and why small shifts in hiring rhythm can change outcomes over time.

Summary
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In large organizations, hiring rarely fails loudly. It fails quietly.

A role stays open longer than expected. Interview rounds multiply. Stakeholders repeat questions in different rooms. Notes arrive days later, then get treated as the truth. The candidate experiences inconsistency and interprets it as uncertainty. The business experiences a delay and calls it “the market.”

This is not usually intentional. It is a pattern that appears when no one owns the system.

Recruitment is often framed as a set of tasks. Scheduling. Sourcing. Interview logistics. Offer management. The work gets done, but the process does not hold. And without a process that holds decisions, they drift toward familiarity.

Over time, gut feeling becomes the dominant metric.

Not because leaders are careless, but because unstructured systems force people to decide with what they have. Memory. Impression. Story.

‍The system behind “gut feeling.”
‍In the conversation, Christian Wastlhuber describes a shift that many executives recognize. Early recruiting decisions were often made based on instinct. The hires were “fine.” Competent. Acceptable. But exceptional talent was rare.

That is a telling outcome. Gut feeling does not typically select for excellence. It selects for resemblance.

When the process lacks structure, the mind fills the gaps. People compare candidates against one another rather than each candidate against the role. The strongest narrative wins, not the clearest match. And the clearest match exists only when the role is defined with discipline.

The issue is not judgment. It is the environment judgment that is forced to operate within.

A structured process does not remove human decision-making. It gives it better ground.

‍Data is not just numbers
‍Data-driven recruitment is often misunderstood as being limited to dashboards and funnel metrics. Those matters. Time in stage. Conversion rates. Offer acceptance. They reveal friction and predict capacity. But Christian highlights a deeper form of data that most companies overlook.

Qualitative data.

Consistently captured interview answers are mapped to a defined role scope and evaluated against shared criteria. This is where objectivity becomes practical. Not perfect. Practical.

To get there, the process needs two elements that are often missing:
• A proper intake meeting that defines the role in its entirety
• A consistent interview and evaluation methodology

The intake is not a formality. It is where alignment is created.

What does success look like in the first 6 to 12 months?
What are the non-negotiable skills?
What collaboration style best strengthens the existing team?
What does the business actually need, beyond a job title?

Without this, the interview cannot be designed to test reality. It tests the assumption.

‍Comparable interviews reduce bias
‍A simple but uncomfortable observation sits at the center of this episode. If interviewers ask different questions, they cannot compare candidates. They compare impressions.

That is where bias becomes structural.

Christian describes a disciplined alternative. Use the same questions and the same case for all candidates in the same role. Create categories for evaluation. Write down findings in a structured way. And close the evaluation quickly, while recall is still intact.

One detail stands out because it is so operational. If interview feedback is not written down within an hour, a large portion of the conversation is already gone. After a day, candidates blur into each other. The organization thinks it is being thorough, but it is becoming less accurate.

Distance grows, then interpretation hardens.

‍Ownership matters more than volume
‍Another recurring pattern appears in many companies. The business believes recruiting “owns hiring.” Recruiting believes the hiring manager “owns hiring.” Responsibility becomes ambiguous, slowing the process.

Christian’s distinction is clean.

Recruitment owns the process.
The hiring manager owns the hiring decision.

This separation is not political. It is functional.

When talent acquisition owns the process, it can design the sequence, reduce duplication, enforce timelines, and protect candidate experience. When the hiring manager owns the decision, accountability remains with the leader who will live with the outcome.

This is rarely how organizations behave by default. But it is how high-trust systems behave.

‍The real cost is not the open role
‍Executives often ask for a number. What does it cost to hire wrong?

Christian points to a common benchmark: a failed hire can reach several multiples of the annual salary once lost productivity, replacement effort, and team disruption are included. The precise multiple varies by role and context. The more useful point is what it reveals.

The cost is not the mistake. The cost is the ripple.

When a bad hire exits, work redistributes. Stress rises. Sickness increases. Attrition risk spreads. The organization pays twice, then pays again in morale.

This is why data-driven recruitment is not an HR improvement initiative. It is an operating system choice.

‍AI will automate, but it will not replace judgment
‍The episode also touches on the future of recruiting. Christian’s view is unfashionable in a good way. He sees a strong human factor remaining.

Technology will automate scheduling, coordination, and parts of the sourcing process. It will help smooth the process. But defining roles, interviewing, and evaluating people are still subject to bias and false certainty when outsourced to tools. In Europe, regulations such as the EU AI Act add pressure to remain human-centered and deliberate.

The point is not fear. It is clarity.Tools can increase speed. They do not create alignment.

‍A final reflection
‍Recruitment is often treated as a service function. At scale, it behaves more like infrastructure.

When the infrastructure is unstructured, every leader improvises. Every interviewer asks what matters to them. Every candidate experiences a different company. The business calls it inconsistency. Candidates call it culture.

Once the infrastructure is in place, the process stabilizes. Comparable. Predictable. And decisions become easier to defend, especially at the CEO level, where proof matters and narrative alone does not.

Working inside large organizations taught me that the most expensive hiring problems are rarely dramatic. They are the quiet ones who repeat.

Over time, systems either learn or they calcify.

And recruiting is one of the few places where a small change in rhythm can alter the entire organization’s future.