Hiring is the highest-leverage decision a leader makes, and it is the one we most often make with the least rigour. We spend weeks on a technology procurement and forty-five minutes on a person who will shape a department for five years.
Over time I have narrowed what I look for. Credentials matter — they establish a floor. But they describe where someone has already been. In a business that is changing, I care more about what they will do with a situation nobody has briefed them on.
1. Evidence of learning something hard
Not “willingness to learn,” which everyone claims. Evidence. A concrete instance of encountering something they did not understand and doing the unglamorous work of understanding it.
I ask about it directly. The answers separate people quickly. Some describe a course they attended. Others describe a problem they could not solve, what they read, who they asked, how long it took, and what they got wrong along the way. The second answer tells me they will handle the thing I have not anticipated.
2. Ownership of failure without theatre
Everyone has a failure story prepared. What matters is its shape.
Weak answers are either disguised strengths (“I care too much about quality”) or diffuse blame (“the market shifted, the team under-delivered”). Strong answers include the specific decision the person made, why it seemed right at the time, and what they changed afterwards.
I trust people who can say “I got that wrong” without dramatising it. That is the person who will tell me about a problem while it is still small.
3. Curiosity about the customer
I ask candidates what they think the customer’s actual experience is. Not the process — the experience. The waiting, the confusion, the small indignities.
People who have never thought about it give abstract answers. People who have get specific and often slightly annoyed. That annoyance is valuable. It is the engine behind most real improvements.
4. Comfort with incomplete information
Fast-moving businesses do not deliver complete data before decisions are required. Some very capable people are paralysed by this — they want the analysis to be finished, and it never is.
I look for people who can say: here is what we know, here is what we are assuming, here is the decision I would make, and here is the signal that would tell us to change course. That is a distinct skill from analytical ability, and it is rarer.
5. Genuine interest in the people around them
The most consistent predictor I have found of long-term contribution is whether someone is interested in colleagues as people rather than as resources.
It is not about being sociable. It is about noticing. The person who knows what a teammate is struggling with is the person who prevents small problems from becoming large ones — and who is worth promoting later.
What I have stopped weighing heavily
Interview polish. Some excellent people interview poorly, particularly in a second language. I have learned to test for the work rather than the performance.
Perfectly linear career paths. The unusual route often produces the more adaptable person.
Pedigree alone. A recognised name tells me an institution had a selection process. It tells me relatively little about what happens on a difficult Tuesday.
The honest part
I have got this wrong. I have hired for impressive credentials and watched them stall, and passed on people who went on to do excellent work elsewhere.
The discipline I try to keep is simple: write down beforehand what I am actually looking for, and afterwards, why I decided what I decided. Reviewing those notes a year later has taught me more about hiring than any framework.
Dr. Mohamed Mousa writes about financial services, technology, and leadership.