When Something Feels Off. Why Intuition Still Matters in Recruitment and Leadership

We’ve all experienced it: a sense that something isn’t quite right. It’s rarely dramatic, more often a subtle unease — a glance, a tone, a phrase that lingers. Hard to name, but equally hard to ignore.

In recruitment, that signal can be the difference between a great match and an expensive mistake.

We often call it gut feeling. In truth, it’s intuition: the collective “bank of experience” we draw on, built through years of human encounters and honed by thousands of micro-signals we barely register, yet still process.

What Intuition Picks Up That CVs Don’t

These signals often sit outside formal job descriptions, but they carry weight:

• Body language and eye contact — the unscripted part of communication.

• Tone of voice, attitude, and rhythm — often more revealing than the words themselves.

• How someone speaks about others — especially past managers and colleagues.

• Authenticity — does the story feel rehearsed, or lived?

• Status vs collaboration — is the drive prestige, or partnership?

Individually, these cues may seem minor. Collectively, they form a pattern that tells us how someone might really operate in a team, under pressure, or in a new culture.

Why In-Person Still Matters

The rise of AI-powered interview bots promises efficiency. But efficiency isn’t the same as discernment. Algorithms can parse words; they cannot perceive nuance.

And when appointments fail, it is rarely because of missing technical skills. It’s because of cultural mismatch. Culture isn’t captured in a CV, nor fully surfaced through a virtual Q&A. It emerges in how people show up; the pauses, the responses, the small tells that only come alive in human interaction.

Intuition as a Strategic Compass

This doesn’t mean letting instinct overrule evidence. Intuition should never be the sole decision-maker but ignoring it altogether is equally dangerous.

In leadership and in hiring, intuition works best as a compass guiding where to probe deeper, when to slow down, and when to test assumptions. It bridges what we see on paper with what we sense in practice.

When something feels “off,” it often signals an underlying misalignment. The wisest leaders pay attention not to let the feeling make the decision, but to ensure it shapes the questions that follow.

The Leadership Lesson

Intuition is not soft. It’s systemic. It connects patterns of behaviour, culture and context that raw data alone cannot capture. Leaders who ignore it risk walking past the very signals that could have saved them from burnout hires, fragile teams, or fractured cultures.

At Deabadh, we see intuition as a skill worth refining — not replacing. Because when leaders bring experience, evidence and intuition together, decision-making becomes not just sharper, but truer to the culture they are building.

👉 Want help surfacing what’s really shaping your team’s culture and the signals beyond the CV? Let’s talk.

About Deabadh Group:

Deabadh is a strategic partner to boards, CEOs and founders navigating complexity, transition and growth. With deep expertise in executive search, succession planning and leadership development, we help organizations design leadership that performs—individually and collectively.

Our approach blends behavioral science, organizational design and commercial rigour. We don’t just fill roles. We build the leadership capacity and team dynamics that drive sustainable success.

We work globally, with a focus on founder-led, family and privately held enterprises. Helping them unlock value through thoughtful succession, strategic appointments and culture-aware transformation.

To learn more, visit www.deabadhgroup.com or contact us directly to start a conversation.