The Rise of AI Makes Hiring the Right People More Important Than Ever

As AI absorbs the routine, repeatable tasks inherent in much entry-level professional work, traits become the differentiator, making hiring the most critical leadership decision a manager will make.

It’s tempting for leaders to focus on just one part of the AI transformation - the obvious upside: fewer junior hires, lower costs, and efficiency gains. Boards love that story. Shareholders love that story. But that very transformation makes human talent more important, not less.

AI can accelerate workflows, but it cannot replace human qualities: resilience, curiosity, integrity, empathy, initiative, emotional maturity, or the ability to influence and collaborate. These are the traits that predict success in modern roles, yet they remain the traits most leaders still do not know how to interview for.

As I noted in my last post, AI will transform tasks, but it won’t transform people. People still drive performance.

In law firms and corporate legal departments (and across other professions and industries), AI will eliminate or compress a vast portion of early-career work: document review, due diligence, first drafts, e-discovery, audit work, and basic analysis. Several major changes are already underway, and the ripple effects of the AI transformation could also mean:

• The billable hour model will shift.
• The leverage model will shift.
• Teams will shrink, and expectations for output will rise.
• The mid-level gap will widen unless firms plan for it.
• Hiring fewer junior attorneys means you must hire stronger ones.
• Lateral hiring pressure will increase.
• How we train early-stage employees will need to shift as well.
• And to keep your trained people, your emphasis on culture and retention must shift as well.

As AI removes entry-level and early-career tasks, the cost of a bad hires will increase dramatically as:

• Each person must deliver more impact and, therefore, more value.
• Organizations will hire fewer people but expect more from each one.

In other words, AI won’t mask talent gaps in your organization, it magnifies them.

Hiring for traits, not just technical skills: Leaders will need to hire people who demonstrate the ability to:

• Build trust with clients

• Collaborate across practice groups and generations

• Navigate ambiguity and conflict

• Influence others without authority

• Build relationships

• Problem-solve, exercise judgment

• Possess emotional intelligence/reasoning ability

• Ask deeper, strategic questions

• Self-direct: ownership and accountability

• Exercise judgment beyond what’s in the data

• Adapt/see around corners

• Lead through change (not fear it)

• Think creatively about issues

• Learn, and confidently adapting to using new tools (like AI)

• Care about teammates and clients

These traits aren’t just “soft skills.”

They will be the core drivers of performance in an AI-driven world.

If AI is doing the first draft, your people must be able to do the final draft. They will use their human ability to:

• Interpret context.
• Make decisions.
• Understand clients as human beings with human problems.

As middle and junior ranks shrink, so will your margin for error. If a manager hires someone who lacks the interpersonal maturity, drive, or adaptability their team requires, AI will not mask that weakness—it will magnify it.

In this environment, hiring is not merely a transactional process, but a strategic advantage. It impacts culture, performance, retention, team cohesion, client satisfaction, and ultimately, the long-term health of an organization.

For leaders, this means:

1. Hire for traits that can’t be automated: curiosity, emotional intelligence, resilience, communication, judgment.
2. Develop people relentlessly: coaching, feedback, and shared accountability matter more than ever.
   • Training focuses less on task execution and more on client interaction, analysis, and judgment.
   • Junior talent must be “client-ready” earlier.
   • Apprenticeship models need rethinking.

1. Create cultures where people want to stay: connection beats perks.
2. Measure performance on outcomes, not hours.

AI will change the work, but humans will still determine the results.

Hiring leaders, I’m curious:

Which human abilities matter most in your organization today, and what traits do you think will matter in 2030? 

I wonder if they’ll be different and how.