Hiring in the Age of AI: Why Human-Led Recruitment Still Wins

Patrick Hollard, Chief Customer Officer & Executive Board Member at PageGroup

AI has been heralded as the future of hiring—offering faster screening, smarter recommendations, and better decisions at scale. But for hiring managers, this rapid evolution can feel less like a revolution and more like a reckoning.

Rather than simplifying their jobs, AI has introduced a new layer of complexity. Tools are changing faster than teams can adapt. Platforms promise seamless automation but often require time-consuming configuration. And in many cases, AI solutions are being adopted top-down, with little room for on-the-ground feedback from the people actually doing the hiring.

This puts hiring managers in a uniquely difficult position. They’re being asked to do more—with less time, more scrutiny, and tools they didn’t necessarily ask for.

The challenges are real:

• Overwhelming applicant volume: With job boards and one-click applications, hiring managers are often buried in hundreds of resumes—most of which don’t meet basic criteria. AI can help triage these inflows, surface promising candidates, and filter out obvious mismatches—but only if the systems are trained well and used thoughtfully.
• Pressure to move faster: In competitive markets, delays in hiring can mean losing top talent. AI-powered scheduling, interview automation, and workflow tools can reduce lag. But speed without judgment risks poor hires—and hiring managers are still accountable for outcomes.
• Difficulty assessing soft skills and potential: Algorithms are excellent at finding keywords and matching credentials, but they can’t read between the lines. They miss the candidate who’s changing careers with intention, or who brings adaptability over experience. It’s still the hiring manager who must make these high-context calls.
• Evolving expectations from leadership: Many HR leaders now expect data-backed hiring decisions and tighter alignment with company goals. AI can assist by providing analytics on candidate funnels, time-to-fill metrics, and bias reduction—but interpreting these insights still requires human context.

So where does this leave the hiring manager?

Right at the center.

Because AI isn’t eliminating their role—it’s redefining it. Managers are no longer just decision-makers. They’re becoming orchestrators: coordinating between people, tools, and outcomes. That means mastering not just the art of interviewing, but also the judgment to know when to trust an algorithm—and when to override it.

It also means rethinking what it means to lead in a hiring context. The best managers today aren’t the ones chasing every new platform. They’re the ones who ask: Will this tool help my team make better decisions? Will it create a better experience for the candidate? Will it give us time back for the work that I and my team are best at?

Coaching, connecting, assessing nuance— the need for these skills isn’t going away. In fact, as AI handles more of the repetitive workload, the spotlight shifts back to the irreplaceable value of people skills. Judgment. Empathy. Adaptability. Curiosity. These aren’t “nice to haves”—they’re core leadership capabilities.

Hiring managers don’t need to become technologists. But they do need to become translators: turning business goals into hiring actions, turning AI outputs into hiring insight, and turning candidate interactions into long-term value for the organization.

The companies that get hiring right in this next chapter won’t be the ones with the most tools—they’ll be the ones with the most capable, empowered hiring managers.

So yes, the landscape is changing fast. But it’s not about replacing humans. It’s about elevating them. The most effective hiring leaders today are the ones who lean in, get curious, and use AI not to take over—but to take hiring to a higher level.