Entrepreneur Steven Bartlett is known for taking risks that pay off — and he brings the same approach when hiring.
Bartlett, the founder and host of the popular podcast “The Diary of a CEO,” said in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday that one of the best hires he has ever made was someone whose “CV was two lines” and whose “experience was zero.”
The candidate scored highly on the culture survey that Bartlett asks prospective employees to fill out when they apply to work at his companies, he wrote on LinkedIn.
Bartlett has cofounded multiple companies focused on the digital creator economy and media, including Flight Story, which produces his podcast, and Thirdweb, a Web3 developer platform.
During the interview, the person acknowledged that she didn’t know the answer to one of the questions, Bartlett said. Within hours, she had sent a follow-up email to Bartlett saying that she had taught herself the answer, he added.
He also noticed that she thanked the security guard by name on her way into the office, and sent a thank-you note to everyone after the interview, Bartlett said.
“Six months later? She’s one of the best hires I had ever made,” said Bartlett. The lesson he learned from that experience was to “hire the thing that’s hardest to teach.”
“You can train someone on your systems in a month. You can’t train them to want to win, work hard, and be ambitious in a month,” Bartlett said.
After 15 years of hiring, Bartlett said he’s learned that “culture fit and character is much harder to hire than experience, skills, or education.”
The etiquette of sending a thank-you email after a job interview, which the “Diary of a CEO” host praised in his now-employee, has recently sparked debate online.
Some argued the practice was forced, and that norms had changed in the post-pandemic remote world. Matt Grimm, a cofounder of Anduril, said on X that sending a thank-you card was “completely irrelevant,” and he didn’t care if a candidate sent one.
Others argued that it was a sign that people cared about the job, and failing to send a thank you would hit people’s chances of being hired.
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