How do you decide who to hire? A decision so automated for companies yet one that can radically change the lives of those in the receiving end.

In fact, can we truly decide anything at all?

Since the Enlightenment, we've clung to the idea that reason drives judgment. But as David Hume famously argued, reason is often the servant of our passions. Realistically, we make snap decisions—gut calls—and only then does reason step in to justify them.

Nowhere is this more evident than in hiring. Recruiters spend an average of seven seconds scanning a resume. Seven seconds to judge a person's potential. In that fleeting moment, proxies like pedigree, GPA, or job titles often take over. But how rational are these decisions, really? And when do these shortcuts become the decision itself?

The truth is, hiring has always been more art than science—a mix of instinct and bias masquerading as objectivity.

The AI Amplification Problem

Early AI in hiring didn't fix this. It amplified it. Machine learning models, trained on historical hiring decisions, simply scaled up the same flaws. They learned to mimic the seven-second glance, prioritizing the same proxies—degrees, brand-name employers—that humans lean on under pressure.

The result? Faster decisions, but not better ones. Biases baked in, blind spots preserved. Speeding up a broken process doesn't make it whole. It just means you're wrong at scale.

The Fuzzy Nature of Preference

Here's the core issue: we humans rarely know what we want until we see it. Ask a recruiter to define the “perfect candidate,” and you'll get vague descriptors—a vibe, not a blueprint. This isn't a failure of skill; it's the nature of human judgment. Our preferences are fuzzy, shaped by unspoken instincts and mental models we barely understand ourselves.

What if your instincts weren't a black box? What if you had a tool that showed you exactly what you value, what you overlook, and why—so your decisions aren't just habits, but choices.

The ProSieve Approach

At ProSieve, we don't believe AI should replace human judgment, it should sharpen it—helping people surface what they value, question their assumptions, and make decisions with clarity. Imagine a system that helps recruiters see their own decision-making process—where they overvalue credentials, undervalue resilience, or fixate on hard skills until a spark of startup grit catches their eye.

This isn't about AI picking the “best” candidate. It's about empowering recruiters to understand how they define “best” in the first place.

We're building a future where hiring isn't about automation or cold optimization. It's about cognitive clarity. At ProSieve, our mission is to help recruiters externalize their intuitive models, turning gut feelings into structured insights. Picture an AI that acts like a tireless extension of yourself—one with infinite time to evaluate each candidate deeply, fairly, and consistently.

In a strange twist, AI might just be the way to make hiring human again.