Hire for slope, not intercept.

A resume shows where someone is. It does not show how fast they are moving.

I have hired two kinds of people. The first had an impressive track record at well-known companies and a portfolio of finished work. The second had a less impressive resume but had clearly taught themselves something hard in the last 12 months.

The second kind almost always outperformed. Not because they were smarter, but because they were actively in the middle of getting better at something, and that momentum carried into the work.

The trap is that intercept is easy to measure and slope is not. You can read a resume. You cannot read trajectory. The only way to see slope is to ask what someone has learned recently, how they learned it, and what they got wrong along the way.

Do you optimize for where someone is or how fast they are moving, and has that changed over time?