"When you connect the right person with the right skillset, with the right environment, everybody wins." – Alex Bowden

Most scaling companies are bleeding talent because they've automated the wrong parts of hiring. Alex Bowden, founder of People First Talent and Retention Consulting, breaks down why your ATS system is sabotaging your culture—and how to fix it with human-first hiring strategies that actually work.

Think of hiring like dating: if you lead with a checklist of requirements, you'll kill the connection before it starts. Alex reveals the framework that helped her clients save upwards of $100,000 per year, reduce turnover by 30%, and triple their hiring speed—all by treating candidates like humans first, employees second.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why skills-based hiring creates expensive mismatches (and what to screen for instead)
• The "cultural competency blueprint" that eliminates 70% of bad-fit candidates before interviews
• How to identify natural strengths that predict success better than any resume
• Why "likability" matters for your front desk hire but sabotages your engineering team
• The energy dynamics in interviews that kill offers (and how to reverse them)
• Alex's proven framework for operationalizing culture beyond abstract values

#HumanConnectionInBusiness #ClientRetentionStrategies #StartupLeadership #CompanyCultureTransformation #ScalingClientSuccessTeams

===

You can connect with Alex Bowden here:

https://careercourse.choosepeoplefirst.com

www.choosepeoplefirst.com

You can connect with Karl Pontau here:

www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1

Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!