Mike Dixon’s son was in high school when he interviewed for a job at In-N-Out. If you’ve ever tried to get hired there, you know it’s surprisingly not as easy as it sounds — they’re notoriously selective. He was one of the only candidates who showed up in a suit and tie for the highly coveted fast food gig, when the norm was to come casually dressed.
And guess what? They hired him on the spot!
Mike tells that story for a reason. “Effort takes no talent,” he said on The Automated Advantage podcast. “It takes zero talent to be on time. It takes zero talent to be properly dressed.” In a world where AI can generate a flawless resume, a polished cover letter, and rehearsed interview answers in seconds, the things that can’t be automated are becoming the most important signals in recruiting. The human elements that cannot be replicated such as effort, presence, critical thinking, and genuine judgment in a real conversation.
That’s what AI changed about recruiting. The tangible, technical stuff got easier to fake. Which means the intangible human skills got more valuable. This blog is about what that shift actually means for company leaders, hiring leaders, and HR/recruiters alike, and where your time and attention should be going as a result.
In-Person Interviews Are Making a Comeback (And Here’s Why)
Virtual interviews still very much have their place. Early screening calls and first-round video interviews make sense as an initial filter, and that’s not changing.
But AI changed the equation when it comes to later interview stages, and that’s where it matters most. By the time you’re seriously evaluating a candidate for hire, you need to know what you’re actually getting. The problem is that AI has made it easier than ever for candidates to present a version of themselves that looks better on screen than they are in reality. Mike shared the shift on The Automated Advantage: “In-person interviews are now more important than they have been in many years because you can’t fake it in an in-person interview. You can’t have the other laptop open off screen with the AI going.”
A candidate can use AI to craft the perfect resume and prep rehearsed answers before a video call. But in an in-person interview? That’s all them. They can’t rely on AI for their energy, their preparation, how they carry themselves, or their think-on-their-feet responses.
Some companies are taking this further with an experiential interview (a simple live skills test built into the process). “Have them do a work sample interview,” Mike said. “Using a laptop not hooked up to anything to say, okay, create this document for me in Excel, run this problem, do this right now.” For skilled roles in the trades, have them do an actual test assignment.
Keep it simple and time-bound (30 minutes max for most roles, up to an hour for manager-level and above). The goal isn’t perfection. It’s a gut check on whether someone can actually do what their resume says that is directly applicable to the role they’re applying for. You’d be surprised how often that reveals a gap a polished application never would.
Before you make a final hiring decision, get in front of the person if at all possible. Or at minimum, design the final interview in a way that minimizes AI’s ability to run interference.
Effort Takes No Talent (But It’s Getting Rarer)
While AI gets better at handling the technical, repeatable parts of work (developers solving in minutes what used to take hours, designers building websites in a fraction of the time, warehouse robots sorting packages around the clock), the soft human signals are actually becoming more differentiating, not less.
What AI can’t do is read a room, pick up on emotional nuance, or exercise the kind of human judgment that comes from actually caring about the outcome. Major AI companies are investing heavily in AI ethics teams precisely because they know human discernment is a genuine gap. There are things that are inherently human — empathy, contextual judgment, genuine presence — that no model has figured out how to replicate yet.
Mike made this point in the context of a real C-suite hiring conversation on The Automated Advantage: “Discussing with investors on a C-suite hire yesterday, the investor said, ‘Did that candidate send us a thank you note?’ Doesn’t take any talent to send a thank you note. And these things still count.”
Think about that. A senior investor, evaluating an executive hire, asking about a thank you note from that candidate. Not about their resume or their credentials, but a basic human gesture.
The bar for standing out as a candidate is in some ways lower right now, not higher. Good eye contact, positive energy, professional attire, a handwritten thank you note — these things used to be table stakes. Now they’re differentiators because they’re becoming rarer. And again don’t hear us wrong. We’re not saying smart, capable people can’t dress casually, for example (plenty of them do, and it works for them – we’re talking about you, Mark Zuckerberg). The point is that effort and intentionality stand out in a way they haven’t in years.
One more thing worth adding here: the candidates who are going to win long-term aren’t the ones fighting AI. They’re the ones who know how to use it well AND bring the human stuff that AI can’t replace. Both matter, and neither one alone will be enough in this new human-AI cohabitation era.
What Recruiters Should Actually Be Spending Their Time On
If AI is handling resume screening, scoring, scheduling, and initial outreach (we talk more about this in our blog here)— and it should be, because that work is time-consuming and doesn’t require human judgment — then what’s left for the recruiter?
Everything that matters.
- Knowing the field. A recruiter who doesn’t understand the role they’re hiring for can’t effectively evaluate a candidate in a live conversation. They can read a job description, sure. But can they ask the follow-up questions that get past the rehearsed answer? Can they tell the difference between someone who actually knows how to run a financial model and someone who sounds like they do? That domain knowledge is the recruiter’s primary value in 2026, and it’s irreplaceable.
- The live video or phone screen. This is where real evaluation happens. Not the AI scoring, not the resume review — the actual live conversation with that candidate. A good recruiter uses this time to assess things that don’t show up on paper: how someone communicates under a little pressure, whether they’re curious and ask good questions back, how they talk about past experiences and what they take ownership of vs. what they deflect. Just like a good professor knows if a paper is plagiarized, a good recruiter can sense if the candidate is getting fed AI answers that seem, well, off. These are judgment calls that require a human.
- Reading between the lines on the job description. Mike makes a point on The Automated Advantage that most companies miss: “Sometimes we write, especially if we don’t hire a lot, we write the perfect AI-driven job description with everything in it. And then we wonder why we don’t get any candidates because we’re out hunting for a purple unicorn.” A good recruiter pushes back on unrealistic requirements from the hiring manager before and throughout the search. Do you really need that certification to find a good person who can do the job? Because if you do, you’ve just eliminated 20% of the available talent pool. Is that worth it, or can we be more flexible in those areas and less flexible in the things that matter that are harder to train for?
- Selling the opportunity. The best candidates are almost never actively looking. They’re employed, comfortable enough, and not spending their evenings on job boards (what we call “passive talent”). Getting them interested requires a real conversation from a real person who can speak honestly about the opportunity, the team, and the company. While AI can help make it easier to find them, only a human can actually convince them that the grass really is greener.
- Building the relationship. I’m sure you’ve gotten cold emails or texts that feel obviously automated. Or called into a support line and immediately known you weren’t talking to a real person. Frustrating, right? The hiring process is no different. Hiring always was and always will be a relationship-first process. Great HR professionals and recruiters connect with candidates in a way that makes them feel taken care of and seen — and that leaves a lasting impression of the company, good or bad. Which brings me to my last point.
- Protecting the candidate experience. How a candidate is treated during the hiring process becomes part of your employer brand whether you think about it that way or not. A slow process, a ghosted application, a disorganized interview — those things get talked about. Mike references Hoops’ 4.9 out of 5-star Google rating on The Automated Advantage and notes that a lot of it comes from candidates who didn’t even get the job. “Even if you don’t hire someone, you create a great hiring experience for them,” he said. And the numbers back this up: 66% of job applicants say a positive candidate experience was the deciding factor in accepting an offer, and companies with a poor employer brand pay at least 10% more per hire just to get candidates to say yes. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot with a hiring process that undermines everything else you’re trying to build.
Before You Think About the Person, Think About the Role
Before you start looking for a candidate, get very specific about what the role actually requires. Many job descriptions get built as a wish list, which unnecessarily drags out the process and cuts out otherwise great candidates. Ask yourself: what does this person actually need to be able to do, and what kind of person succeeds in this specific environment?
Mike shares an example on The Automated Advantage: “‘I need a seller.’ Okay. Do you need somebody that’s kind of a farmer that’s running a key account, managing existing clients for you because you can pick up growth there faster? Or are you looking for a net new organic growth person who’s a business developer, who’s a total hunter? Because those are two different kinds of roles.”
Same goes for skilled trades. “‘I need a welder.’ Okay. What kind? Steel, aluminum, underwater.” Different skills, different experience, different talent pool. If you don’t know the answer before you post the job, you’re going to end up with the wrong candidates, a frustrated team, and a search that drags on longer than it should.
This is also where AI can actually help — not just for writing the job description, but for checking it against reality. What does the talent pool actually look like for this combination of requirements? Are you competitive on compensation? Are there certifications you’re requiring that aren’t necessary? Getting those answers before you go to market saves weeks. We cover the market data piece in more depth in our blog on why AI-powered candidate screening is now the competitive advantage.
The $20/$200 Hour Reality Check
If you’re a business owner or senior leader personally sourcing or screening candidates, ask yourself: is that really the best use of your time?
Mike tells a story on The Automated Advantage about a CEO with significant private equity backing who was personally on LinkedIn looking for candidates instead of running the business. “We need to be able to come in and establish the trust and say, we need to do this work for you. And you need to be focused on much more strategic work,” Mike said.
Same goes down the org chart. If your HR leader is spending most of their time reviewing resumes, scheduling interviews, and sending follow-up emails, they’re not doing the judgment work that actually matters. AI handles the $20/hour work. Your people should be doing the $200/hour work.
The companies getting recruiting right aren’t spending more time on it. They’re spending their time on the right parts of it.
Effort Still Wins (It’s Just Rarer Now)
AI hasn’t made recruiting easier. It’s made the easy parts faster and raised the bar for everything else.
The resume means less now because everyone’s looks polished. The credentials mean less too because the bar for what you can learn and demonstrate has dropped, and honestly that’s a good thing because AI should be doing more of that heavy lifting to save everyone time and money. What’s filling that gap is exactly what Mike’s son demonstrated walking into that In-N-Out interview: genuine effort, real presence, and the willingness to show up prepared when everyone else didn’t bother.
For recruiters and hiring leaders, that’s actually good news. The skills that matter most in this job (knowing your field, reading people, asking the right questions, protecting the candidate experience) are the ones AI will never replicate. The question is just whether you’re spending your time on them.
At Hoops, we’ve always prioritized the intangibles AI can’t replace while working alongside it, not against it, to make the right things faster and cheaper. That balance is what allows our clients to stop doing $20/hour work and start making the $200/hour decisions that actually move the needle.
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