The Truth Serum Test

What hiring managers actually want, and why no resume will ever tell you

Picture this. You slip a little truth serum into a hiring manager’s coffee and ask what they really want in their next hire.

Not what’s on the job description. The real answer.

You’re not going to hear about a certification or how many years someone spent in a certain piece of software. Not at first anyway. What you’ll get is a pile of stuff you can’t put on a resume. Somebody who doesn’t need to be chased. Somebody who owns it when they mess up. Somebody the team is actually happy to see walk in on a Monday. Somebody who’s great with a customer and just as great at 6pm when the deal is falling apart. Somebody who makes my life easier, not harder.

The tangible stuff does show up eventually. Usually around answer number six, almost like an afterthought.

That’s no accident. People want to hire and work with Good People. That’s the whole thing. Nobody wants to spend forty-plus hours a week next to a jerk, no matter how good the numbers look on paper.

And here’s what I keep coming back to. Skills can be taught. Companies do it every single day. New software, new process, new product, new territory. You give a sharp, hungry person a few months and they’re up to speed. But nobody has figured out how to teach someone to be a good person. Honesty, humility, work ethic, how they treat the server at dinner, whether they show up when it’s hard. By the time someone sits down in your interview, that’s already baked in.

So why do we hire like it’s the other way around?

I mean, I get it. Skills are easy to measure. You can scan for them, filter for them, count them. Character is messy. It doesn’t fit in a field on a form, and so we quietly pretend it’s not the job. Then we act surprised when the “perfect on paper” hire turns out to be a headache and the person we almost passed on becomes the backbone of the team.

Now throw AI into the mix. It’s a great tool and I use it. It can read a thousand resumes before you finish your coffee. What it can’t do is tell you who’s a good person. It can’t hear the pause before someone answers a hard question. It can’t tell whether someone talks about their old team like they were part of it or like they were above it. It can’t feel the difference between a person who says “we” and a person who says “I” every time something goes well.

Other human beings can. Not perfectly, but pretty darn well, and usually pretty fast.

Think about how you find a good mechanic. You don’t run a keyword search. You ask a neighbor, and they say “oh, I know a guy.” That’s a character reference, plain and simple. They’re not vouching for his certifications. They’re telling you he’ll treat you right and he won’t mess you around. The best hires I know of work the same way. Somebody who knew the person put their own name behind them.

That’s what I focus on as a headhunter. I run every search myself, and I’m not listening for the resume, because I’ve got the resume. I’m listening for how someone talks about the boss they didn’t get along with. What they say when I ask about a miss. Whether they light up when they talk about the people they worked with or just the title they held. Then I sit down with my client and tell them about the person, not the bullet points. Finding people is easy. Figuring out who the Good People are, and getting them to pick up the phone, is the work.

If you’re hiring right now, try this before your next search. Write down your own truth serum answer. The real list, the squishy stuff, the stuff you’d never put in a job post. Then put that list at the top and build your interviews around it. Ask people what they did when they screwed up. Actually call the references and listen to how they say it, not just what they say. Hire the attitude and teach the skill.

We’ve gotten way too good at screening for what’s easy to count. Time to get back to figuring out who the good people are, and then going and getting them.

Talk Soon!!

Less Ego’s Means More Amigos,

Spinny