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Eight times the output. Same job. Same title. Not 80%. 800%. Thats a lot. And yet, most hiring systems and processes are almost perfectly designed to miss those people. This isnt a talent shortage. Weve normalized a measurement problem for so long that it barely registers as a problem anymore. Across industries, hiring has been optimized for efficiency and familiarity. We screen for credentials that look impressive, resumes that read cleanly, and career paths that resemble the ones we already trust. It feels rigorous. It feels fair. But it isnt actually predictive of performance. In fact, the more polished a hiring process becomes, the more likely it is to filter for samenessand against the very capabilities that drive outsized performance. Much of this starts with technology that was designed for process automation and then tried to evolve to deliver objectivity at scale. Keyword-based applicant tracking systems move fast, but speed comes at a cost. These systems reward precise phrasing and conventional formatting, not capability. A candidate who has done the workbut describes it differentlynever makes it through. These systems werent built for filtering talent inthey were built to filter talent out. Manual review is often held up as the antidote, but it brings its own limitations. Humans are better at nuance, but were also deeply patterned. The 3-pound caloric monsters we carry around in our skulls are designed for pattern recognition and the path of least resistance. By genetics, we gravitate toward what looks familiar and overvalue signals that feel safe. And even when intentions are good, unstructured evaluation consistently misses qualified candidateswhile remaining impossible to scale. And then, the elephant in the room: Teams are really stretched. Thoughtful, consistent, manual review is less and less feasible, leaving organizations stuck in an uncomfortable middle. Do we settle for technology that is efficient but blind, or humans who are thoughtful but inconsistent? Neither reliably captures what actually predicts performance. DISTANCE TRAVELED This isnt a new problem. Two decades ago, medical schools ran into the same issue. Traditional admissions criteriagrades, test scores, pedigreewere effective at predicting who could pass exams. They were far less effective at predicting who would become exceptional physicians. The metrics were clean. The outcomes were not. So some institutions started asking different questions. Not just How did this person perform? but How far did they travel to get here? What obstacles did they face? What did they have to figure out without a playbook? This ideaoften referred to as distance traveledimpacted who was admitted. And it changed outcomes for the better. Students selected under these frameworks didnt just keep upthey set the bar. They demonstrated stronger judgment under pressure, greater adaptability in ambiguous situations, and deeper empathy with patients whose lives looked nothing like their own. Corporate hiring is now facing a similar time in history, a convergence of inflection points. In fast-moving business environments, the skills that matter most rarely show up neatly in job titles or degrees: learning quickly; thinking clearly when information is incomplete; staying resourceful when plans fall apart; persisting when theres no obvious path forward. These arent soft skills. Theyre critical performance and leadership skills and theyre largely invisible in traditional screening. And thats bad. Its bad for innovation, its bad for culture, its bad for the bottom line. The cost of getting this wrong shows up everywhere. Most employers will admit theyve made at least one bad hire in the past year. The financial impact of that is relatively easy to calculate. The less visible damagelost momentum, exhausted teams, opportunities that never materializeis harder to measure, but no less real. Whats even harder to see or measure is the impact of the lost talent that never had a chance to contribute. The career changer who learned fast because they had to. The veteran who led teams under pressure but doesnt speak corporate. The self-taught professional who mastered complex systems without a credential to legitimize it. These candidates have already demonstrated the capabilities companies say they want, but they dont look as shiny on paper. CHANGE WHAT YOU MEASURE All is not lost. Some organizations are starting to respondnot by lowering standards, but by changing what they measure. Instead of defaulting to credentials and pedigree, theyre evaluating skills directly. Theyre using assessment questions about real-world scenarios, samples, or actual work, and problem-solving exercises that reflect the actual demands of the role. The shift is delivering significant organizational impact. Research shows that when hiring is grounded in capability rather than convention, candidate pools widen. Quality improves. Competition for the same narrow band of perfect resumes eases. But the real advantage runs deeper than these metrics. CAN COMPANIES AFFORD NOT TO EVOLVE? Traditional hiring was built for a world where careers were linear and jobs changed slowly. In that world, past experience was a reasonable proxy for future performance. That world is gone! Today, the defining advantage isnt what someone already knowsits how quickly they can learn what comes next. Medical schools recognized this years ago. They stopped over-indexing on metrics that predicted short-term success and started evaluating for the human capabilities that predict excellence over time. The corporate world needs to catch up. The question for CEOs and CHROs isnt whether hiring should evolve. Its whether organizations can afford not to evolve and to just leave enormous performance upside untouched. Because somewhere in your applicant pool is a candidate who figured things out the hard way or who learned faster because they had fewer options. Someone who developed exactly the capabilities your business needs next. Your systems may never notice them, but someone elses will. Natasha Nuytten is CEO of CLARA.
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E-Commerce
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is sounding the alarm bell, warning investors that he is starting to see some similarities between today’s financial landscape and the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, nearly 20 years ago. Unfortunately, we did see this in ’05, ’06, ’07, almost the same thing,” Dimon said at the firm’s annual investor day in New York on Monday. “The rising tide lifting all boats, everyone was making a lot of money, people leveraging to the hilt. The sky was the limit.” “I dont know how long its going to be great for everybody,” he explained. “I see a couple of people doing some dumb things . . . they are just doing some dumb things.” While Dimon didn’t specify which competitors he was calling out, he says he worries about banks taking on risky loans again, and the high price of assets. Those factors come at a time when technology companies are lavishly spending billions in an AI arms race, much of which they are borrowing, to see who can dominate artificial intelligence in the future. What happened during the 2008 financial crisis? In a nutshell: At that time, banks were issuing risky loans to borrowers, and when new homeowners couldn’t make their payments, the effects led to crash of the U.S. housing market. That crash, in turn, created a ripple effect through the global markets that threatened a global financial collapse. Major U.S. banks teetered on the brink of disasterand notably, investment firm Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. The U.S. government made a decision to bail out some big banks, famously making the calculation they were “too big too fail,” spending some $700 billion to avoid a U.S. economic collapse. The fallout of all this eventually led to what is now known as the “Great Recession.” The Great Recession officially started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, before a very slow economic recovery in the U.S, according to the Federal Reserve. Sparked by the 2008 financial crisis, it is considered the most severe economic downturn in U.S. history since the Great Depression.
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E-Commerce
Ford is recalling nearly 413,000 Explorer SUVs in the U.S. The recall comes after federal regulators warned that a faulty rear suspension component called a “toe link” could restrict a driver’s steering control. According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall report, the recall impacts 2017-2019 Explorer vehicles, with the company estimated around 1% of the selected models are affected. The notice also explained that the recall is an expansion of previous NHTSA recall, number 21V537. “The root cause has not been fully determined to date,” a Feb. 20 report explained. “Some reports indicate vehicles experienced a seized CABJ”, which “will result in a bending moment on the toe link potentially resulting in fracture.” The report also said that drivers with impacted vehicles may hear a “clunk noise, unusual handling, and/or a misaligned rear wheel” indicating the issue is present. Ford says, per the recall notice, that it has not been made aware of any injuries associated with the steering issue. However, as of Feb. 20, there have been two accidents potentially related to the issue. The notice said that Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) associated with the recall will be searchable on NHTSA.gov beginning Feb. 25. It also noted that dealers will correct the issue “free of charge” and explained that owners should wait until they receive notification letters, which are expected to be mailed on March 9. Concerned vehicle owners can contact Ford Customer Service at 1-866-436-7332 with the recall number 26S08. The recall is far from the first to hit Ford recently. The company also recently opened another recall over a High Voltage Battery issue. “Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2023-2025 Ford Escape and 2023-2026 Lincoln Corsair plug-in hybrid vehicles,” the Feb. 17 recall notice explained. “A manufacturing defect in one or more of the high voltage battery cells may result in an internal short circuit and battery failure.” It also noted that the remedy is “under development.” Likewise, in 2025, the recalls seemed constant for Ford, with the brand breaking records halfway through the year for the most recalls of any automaker in a full calendar year. The brand has also seen more recalls over the past decade than all other auto brands, with 458 recalls from 2015 through 2024.
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E-Commerce
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