Over the years, our journey to find and hire exceptional talent has been fraught with challenges. Initially, our struggle stemmed from a lack of clarity about our needs and the discipline to adhere to them. Now that we have a solid understanding of the qualities that make someone a good fit for our team, a new challenge has emerged: finding those individuals.

We began our hiring process in the traditional way, posting advertisements with a long list of requirements. These included everything from technical skills to soft skills and educational qualifications. However, we soon realized that many resumes did not accurately reflect the candidates’ true abilities. Often, the skills listed were more aspirational than actual, leading to a mismatch between expectations and reality.

This issue reminded me of an experience while advancing my SCUBA diving skills. The training required a certain number of dives in various scenarios. When I asked my instructor if he needed to see my logbook, he replied that he would know my experience level once we were in the water. This approach highlighted a key insight: practical experience and demonstrated ability are far more telling than any list of qualifications. In the end, he ended up taking a copy of my logbook for documentation purposes, after he knew I had the required skill.

In hiring, the core issue isn’t the requirements list itself but our over-reliance on it. A list of requirements is quantitative, not qualitative. It’s easy to assume that meeting these metrics means a candidate is qualified, but this isn’t always the case. Many times, individuals appear qualified on paper but fall short in practice due to a disconnect between their knowledge and its application.

We also use personality profiles, such as the DISC profile, when hiring new team members. However, we’ve learned not to use these profiles as absolute criteria. Instead, they serve as a starting point for deeper conversations about a candidate’s motivations and behaviors. These discussions often provide more valuable insights than any profile alone.

A list of requirements can serve as an initial filter, but it should be understood as just that—an initial filter. The real goal is to engage candidates in meaningful conversations to gain genuine insights into who they are, why they operate the way they do, and whether their approach aligns with our organizational culture. Hiring even the most qualified person is unwise if they do not fit within our team.

We’ve chosen to move away from the traditional list of requirements, as it often creates a barrier in the hiring process. While this approach requires more effort to sift through candidates, it leads to more honest interactions and saves time in the long run. Interestingly, many larger organizations are also adopting similar methodologies.

Our current challenge is finding candidates who are comfortable with this conversational approach. Many millennials, dissatisfied with traditional hiring methods, appreciate this more human interaction but often struggle with it. Similarly, experienced professionals also value this approach but may be conditioned by older hiring practices.

This is our ongoing journey, and the results are still unfolding. How are you handling hiring, scaling, and finding great team members? Are you facing similar challenges, or have you found other effective strategies? We would love to hear from you!