Ep 64: Breaking the "Rush Cycle": Building Talent Density

Guest Bio:

Joshua Hill is co-founder of SuperHired and VP of People & Culture at Tier 11. A former Army Infantry Captain, he applies lessons from leading soldiers under pressure to fix what's broken about modern hiring. He's obsessed with building Talent Density—teams where exceptional people make everyone around them better.

Follow Josh Hill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-hill-24b760a6

Episode Highlights:

Josh Hill, co-founder of Superhired.ai and VP of People & Culture at Tier 11, shares how he translates military leadership principles into the corporate world to fix the "broken" state of modern recruitment. The goal is to move away from high-speed, transactional hiring and head toward a model of talent density, where exceptional individuals are intentionally placed in environments that allow them to elevate everyone around them.

A destructive trend in modern hiring, known as the "Rush Cycle," exists where companies prioritize speed over suitability. This urgency often results in "throwing candidates over the fence" to fill roles quickly, leading to bad hires that erode team confidence and drain financial resources. Today, this is exacerbated by an "AI vs. AI" arms race: candidates use AI to mass-produce resumes, while companies use AI keyword scanners to filter them out. This leads to massive signal loss, stripping away the human connection and context necessary for a successful match.

To counter the rush, a discovery-led approach is needed. This involves slowing down to treat the job as a "work product" that must be thoroughly understood before it is "sold" to a candidate. By conducting internal interviews and gathering qualitative data from stakeholders, companies can create extreme clarity. Utilizing "job maps"—comprehensive deep dives into success metrics and team dynamics— act as a filter. This transparency creates "polarity," attracting candidates who are truly aligned with the mission while naturally discouraging those who aren't a fit.

While Josh is the co-founder of an AI-driven startup, he maintains that AI should be a companion, not the decision-maker. At Superhired, AI is used to interpret large quantities of discovery data, identifying patterns and connecting dots that humans might miss. It also helps create realistic work simulations—the corporate version of military mission rehearsals. However, the core interface of hiring must remain human-to-human to capture the emotional and cultural nuances that determine long-term success.

Both employers and employees should ask: "What am I hiring this job to do for me?" Whether a person hires a job for status, security, or a sense of belonging, understanding these internal drivers is the key to a lasting match. When a company’s work product aligns with a candidate’s personal "why," the result is a high-performance environment where discretionary effort and fulfillment naturally thrive.

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https://www.superhired.ai

https://www.tiereleven.com