Rethinking Recruitment: Why Data-Informed Hiring Is the Future

For too long, hiring decisions have leaned heavily on academic qualifications and past experience. While useful, this traditional approach often misses what really matters: who a person is, not just what they’ve done.

This is where data-informed hiring - or “hiring with insights” - comes in. It’s a better educated, more holistic way to identify talent, especially in early career recruitment. Forward-thinking companies are already using platforms like add-victor to tap into a broader, deeper understanding of candidate potential. The result? Better hires, stronger teams, and a measurable edge in a competitive market.

Bad hires are a threat to all businesses. The true cost of a bad hire goes far beyond the monetary losses - it drains time, morale, and company culture while compounding financial losses. With short tenures rising (especially among Gen Z) and growing skills gaps threatening global productivity, the pressure to hire right has never been higher. From lost productivity to damaged team dynamics, even one misstep can have a ripple effect across an organisation. In this context, traditional hiring methods fall short. What’s needed is an insight-based hiring approach that prioritises soft skills and long-term fit - turning recruitment from a risk into a strategic advantage.

What Does “Hiring With Insights” Really Mean?

Hiring with insights means looking beyond the academic results and experience to judge fit, instead, focusing on character, potential, values, and soft skills. It means considering attributes like:

• Character and drive
• Values and cultural alignment
• Leadership potential
• Emotional intelligence and communication skills
• Resilience, discipline, and team mindset

These traits are rarely visible on paper but often determine whether someone thrives in a role. Insight-led hiring evaluates such traits through structured empirical data using behavioural profiles, video assessments, performance traits, extracurricular and sporting achievements and leadership positions. With traditional hiring, these vital traits could be overlooked. With insight-led hiring, they’re front and centre - quantified, structured, and embedded into decision-making.

Why It Works: From Fit to Performance

Adopting an insight-led approach to recruitment offers measurable advantages:

• Reduced hiring risk: A deeper understanding of personality and behavioural traits helps avoid poor fits.
• Improved retention: Candidates selected for both skills and values are more likely to stay and thrive.
• Performance alignment: Matching candidates with performance traits specific to the role leads to stronger outcomes.
• Diversity of talent pool: By expanding the criteria beyond traditional CV filters, you open doors to talented individuals from broader backgrounds.

For early-careers recruitment especially, traditional signals like work experience are scarce and limited in their insight. Hiring based only on academics and experience is no longer enough. Companies need a way to uncover potential, not just pedigree. This is the problem that insight-based hiring solves.

How add-victor Is Changing the Game

add-victor specialises in connecting employers with high-performing talent from elite sporting and military backgrounds. Our candidates - ranging from university-level athletes to Olympians, and from all branches of the armed forces - are pre-vetted for critical attributes such as resilience, discipline, and coachability. These qualities are proven indicators of long-term professional success. Consequently, add-victor helps employers identify candidates with the raw ingredients to succeed - whether that’s leadership, grit, adaptability, or values that align with the company culture. This kind of hiring builds future leaders, not just short-term hires.

At add-victor, we’ve designed a platform that brings insight-led hiring to life. We provide candidate shortlist to clients with a percentage fit for listed vacancies based on performance traits, CVs, and a video they’ve made. The knock-on effect is that clients get access to candidates of the best possible fit, ensuring high performance and retention. Not only does this service we provide increase time efficiency for our clients, but it ensures that quality applicants are noticed and given their opportunity to showcase their capabilities; especially those who may have otherwise been left out if emphasis is strictly placed on academics and experience. By broadening the talent pool to include such candidates, we are reducing biases that may lead to homogenous applicants at the interview stages, whilst ensuring quality.

add-victor’s tailored and bespoke services have been proven to work; evident in our 90.3% two-year retention rate - substantially higher than the UK average of 69% (CIPD, 2024).

“We’ve simply not had a bad hire from add-victor.” (CEO, Technology Business)

“She brought Olympic energy into our business.” (Divisional Head, Global Insurance Broker)

The future of recruitment is insight-driven. For businesses that want to compete, evolve, and retain the best talent, it's time to move beyond the CV and embrace a more informed approach. Choose data-driven insight-led hiring.

Hugo Walsh

References

• https://www.talentinsightgroup.co.uk/insights/skills-based-hiring#skills-based-future
• https://www.rolemapper.tech/blog/inclusive-insights-skills-based-hiring/
• https://www.bcg.com/capabilities/diversity-inclusion/expert-insights/skill-based-hiring-can-shred-paper-ceiling
• https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/right-skills-right-person-right-role