Three Things I Look for When Hiring
Commercial awareness, communication, and lived experience are the three things I value most when hiring — and why perspective matters more than job titles.
Editor’s note: This essay sits within the Cultivated library on leadership, learning, and how people shape systems at work. Related pieces explore hiring, behavioural design, and the conditions for effective teams.
Three Things I Look for When Hiring
I’ve spent much of my career hiring, managing, and leading teams.
Recently, someone asked me a simple question:
What three behaviours or abilities do you look for in a hire?
The answer is straightforward.
1. Commercial Awareness
First, I look for commercial awareness.
People should understand:
- Why a company exists
- How it operates
- Why it needs to make money
- Why it's essential to move from idea to value effectively and smoothly
They should see how their role contributes to the whole system.
The goal is not to reshape the business around personal preferences. The goal is to help the business thrive — and make it better.
Without revenue, little else happens for long.
2. Communication Skills
Second, communication.
Someone can be technically brilliant and still create chaos if they cannot listen, explain, or adapt to different communication styles.
Most problems in organisations are communication problems.
Hiring someone who cannot communicate is hiring future friction.
3. Experience (Beyond the CV)
Third — and most important — experience.
Not years on a CV.
Life experience.
Travel.
Starting and failing at something.
Volunteering.
Raising a family.
Working across industries.
Speaking publicly.
Navigating setbacks.
These experiences shape perspective. They build empathy, judgment, and adaptability. They create people who see patterns others miss.
Why Experience Matters
Experience expands how people think and feel. It:
- Broadens cultural awareness
- Deepens observation and communication
- Strengthens leadership and collaboration
- Teaches lessons from failure
- Builds transferable problem-solving skills
People who seek experiences tend to be curious, adaptable, and creative.
They rarely see problems in one dimension.
Hiring for the Person, Not the Position
When I hire, I hire the person first.
Competency matters.
But perspective, curiosity, and lived experience often matter more.
Someone who has lived broadly tends to be more resourceful than someone who has spent a decade repeating the same tasks in one narrow context.
Roles change. People grow.
Perspective compounds.
The Takeaway
Experience comes from having experiences.
Do not underestimate what happens outside work. It shapes judgment, creativity, and humanity — qualities no job title can confer.
Hire for perspective, curiosity, and lived experience, and you build teams that adapt, think, and care.
This piece forms part of Cultivated’s wider body of work on how ideas become valuable, and how better work is built.
To explore further:
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