The Best Hire I Ever Made (and What It Taught Me About AI)
In 2021, I was Head of Technology and Innovation for a professional services firm in Melbourne, and I was hiring for a software development automation position in my team.
It was a grad position, so all the candidates were relatively young and inexperienced, a bit nervous in the interviews — but one of them really stood out.
Let me show you what happened — and what it taught me about AI:
The Interview That Stood Out
They arrived so prepared.
They knew a lot about me — about my career, what I'd done before, what I like, and what I work on.
They also knew about the business — our market positioning, our team, our service offerings.
They had relevant questions.
And I was super impressed — because not only did they have the technical skills that I needed to develop automations for us, but they seemed to think about the big picture, and about why we're doing the things we're doing.
So, I hired them.
And they were a great hire.
Later, after we'd worked together for a while, we chatted about that interview, and I shared how impressed I was and why.
And they said, “Yeah, my mum's in HR, and she prepared me for the interview."
And I thought, wow — what a door-opening privilege to have a mum in HR when you’re a grad looking for a role.
What If AI Could Do That Too?
Not everyone has a mum in HR, but today, everyone’s got access to AI — and it can be our mum in HR.
We all talk about how AI can automate the tasks, save us time on the mundane tasks, which is really important and very useful.
But what really excites me is how it can lift us up, how it can be our mum in HR that opens doors for us.
AI Can Be Anyone You Need
It can be our tech mentor, or a strategist, or a personal trainer, or a finance adviser, or a leadership coach, or an operations expert guru, or a legal adviser, or a communication coach, or anything we need in that moment.
It can help me grow.
It can help me do things that I could not have done before — delight my clients, and show up with new ideas, new thinking, new frameworks.
It can review my work.
It can help me make it better.
It can coach me, push me, guide me.
The Real Barrier
Now imagine that every person in your team has access to all these coach, mentor, adviser capabilities.
What a magic multiplier!
The barrier is not financial — it’s not expensive.
The barrier is not technical skills — because it’s not hard to use.
The real barrier is just awareness and mileage with the tools — learning how to get them to do what we want them to do.
And you only get that magic by doing it.
What AI Is Really For?
Don’t use AI because it’s trendy — do it because it will change how you think, how you work, how you lead, and how you show up.
If I look at my chat history in AI, some of it is mundane things that it just does for me — to organise and cut the boring bits.
Some of it is brainstorming.
And a huge chunk of my chat history is asking AIs to coach me, mentor me, help me understand things I don’t get, review my work, and see if I can improve it.
The Part That Really Excites Me
The part that really excites me in AI is how it can make me better and lift me up.
And that is available to all of us.
And if you're not sure how to start turning AI into your mum in HR, reply to this email — I'm here to help.
—-
Inbal Rodnay
Guiding Firms in Adopting AI and Automation
Keynote speaker | AI Workshops | Executive briefings | Consulting CIO
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