Hey Little Pineapple,

There's one piece of advice on LinkedIn that's gross and pisses me off every time I see it:

“Hire for potential. Skills can be taught.”

We like the sound of that, of course we do.

Because it sounds like the kind of hiring philosophy that gives everyone a fair shot.

It's also complete bullshit.

Back in my Michael Page days (recruitment agency, my first recruitment job) a colleague of mine got a gig from a client.

They asked him to find a replacement for a women working there.

Three years she’d been at the company.

When my colleague asked the client why they were replacing her, the answer was short:

“She had potential. But how long can everyone wait for it to be realised?”

I have to admit, it sounds way better in Polish and I still remember the moment he said this sentence.

"Jak długo można być dobrze zapowiadającym się?"
"How long can everyone wait for the potential to be realised?”

Truth is - it scared me. I felt anxious hearing it.

What if I am this person who never realises their own potential?

Fast forward to this day, thousands of interviews and chats and hundreds of hires later.

The truth from where I sit is unfortunately much simpler - almost no one really hires for potential.

Let me tell you why.

Reasons no one hires for potential

Number one - hiring managers above all else want to minimise risk connected with wrong hire.

Which in reality means their biggest "want" is not to hire someone who will have to end his journey with them in the next 3 months.

Number two - the more senior the role, the less potential matters. When a company posts a senior role, they’re not looking for someone who might grow into it. They’re looking for someone who has already done something close enough that the leap feels small. Very often this is the person who will be responsible for some part of the pie in the company. So it's only natural they want to be as sure as possible this person has the skills to do the gig.

Number three - what the hell even is potential?

So what it technically says is that it's a promise.

I will bet my ass that at least once in your life you were disappointed because of someone in your circles or even a complete stranger, not delivered on what they promised.

Difference is you can just walk away.

Team is stuck with this person for months.

Best predictor of future behaviour?

Past behaviour. Past delivery. Pattern recognition across similar problems.

Let me repeat that: The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

And I'm saying this based on my experience with how hiring processes look.

Sure, you can do AC (Assessment Center, long story short, it's a couple of hours thing where managers observe how you tackle problems) or Trial Days or anything else to calibrate the process and make it as even as humanly possible.

But this require resources, time, manpower most companies don't have or don't want to put into it. So in reality most processes consist of initial interview, 1-2 interviews related to skills - test, home task, tech interview, live coding, etc and then maybe a culture-check interview with the team

What this means if you’re searching

The more senior the role, the more you’re being hired for what you’ve already done.

Not for what you could become.

That’s not cynical. It’s just how risk-averse organisations (which is A LOT of them) protect themselves, and studios are among the most risk-averse hiring environments you’ll find nowadays.

In that environment, “I have potential, I'm a quick learner” is a something they heard milion times before.

“I’ve done this before, this is how I would do it here” is a relief.

Your job in any senior job search is to make it easy for a hiring manager to connect your past to their future problem.

Specifically. Not generally. Not with potential language.

With evidence.

The LinkedIn crowd isn’t entirely wrong, by the way.

For junior roles, entry-level positions, early-career hires where the runway matters more than the current output, yes.

Potential matters there. Absolutely.

But that’s not you.

You’re not selling a runway. You’re selling a track record.

Make it visible.

Until next time,
Patryk