The Way Most Organizations Hire is Backwards. Here’s What to Do Instead.
October 19, 2026 | By David M. Wagner
There are several “80-20 rules” out there. The one for managers goes, “you’ll spend 80% of your time dealing with 20% of your employees.”
That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but as it relates to time I spent directly supervising staff when I was a manager, that tracks pretty well.
Staffing has been a hot topic lately: overcoming the challenges of recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining quality workers…and avoiding, re-training, and letting go of poor fits.
A recent conversation with some peer business owners about the amount of time they spend on staffing issues got me thinking:
The way most of us hire staff is backwards.
More specifically, the criteria most organizations use to evaluate candidates for open positions may be in exactly the wrong order to find the best fits – who will cost you much less managerial time in the long-run.
The Experience Paradox
The first thing most organizations prioritize when hiring staff? Experience.
If they’ve already done the job you’re hiring for, then you won’t need to spend as much time training them and they’ll do the work better than someone with less experience…or so the thinking generally goes.
I’m not here to discount prior work experience as a valuable indicator of skill.
Rather, I want to suggest that skill is one of the lower priorities for hiring excellent employees and that there’s a lot that a candidate’s past experience won’t necessarily tell you, such as:
If they were any good at their previous jobs
If they have an aptitude for learning new skills or ways of working
If they’ll be the right fit for your team
There are plenty of “good on paper” candidates out there who aren’t great for your organization. And there are highly skilled candidates who will leave after a short time if you don’t prioritize the attributes that make for a great fit.
Flipping the Priorities for a Great Hire
If I were advising you on what to look for in a candidate for a job opening, I would suggest you prioritize, in this order:
Alignment with core values
Passion for the mission
Aptitude and drive to learn new skills
Interest in the position
Existing skills and past work experience
Why these attributes, and in this order?
Alignment with core values makes someone a good cultural fit for your organization. Even if they never grow into their role and don’t stick around long, they’ll likely leave on good terms. And they’ll work well with others on your team while they’re here.
List your core values and ask candidates to describe in their cover letter how they exhibit those values. In an interview, ask “tell me about a time your commitment to [name a core value] was challenged, and how you handled it.”
Passion for the mission gives a new hire a stronger incentive to stay when the job gets difficult, to seek out ways to be helpful, and to try hard to grow into their role if needed. It might take more work on your part to find the right fit for a candidate who has only got this far on your list of criteria, but they’ll be enthusiastic helpers if you do.
Their should be immediately obvious in a cover letter. In interviews, ask “what made you interested in applying to this job?”
Aptitude and drive to learn new skills make a candidate potentially suitable for any number of different roles and more adept at growing with their position as your organization evolves. Someone who shares your organization’s core values and passion for your mission and can learn how to do different things will certainly find a meaningful place on your team, if you can offer the flexibility.
Check their résumé for signs of taking on different or additional responsibilities over. Ask about something they’ve been learning to do recently.
Interest in the position – including compatibility with the hours, style of working, and demands of the job – is critical if you have a narrow, specific opening to fill. Just because some can do the job doesn’t mean they’ll want to after a few months. A position requiring evening work may not be a good fit for a parent or caregiver concerned with child care. Data entry will bore someone who is driven by creativity or team work. But even if they lack experience, someone who wants to fill the role you have will be highly motivated to learn.
Be very clear about the demands of the role in the job description. Ask, “what do you enjoy most about [the most demanding parts of the role]?”
Existing skills and past work experience are still a useful gauge for how much you’ll need to train a new employee – to fill a specific role, or simply how to handle job responsibilities if they’re highly inexperienced. Someone who has done the job before also has better insight into their interest in the position and can provide more evidence of their aptitude for learning the skills required for this role.
The résumé is a starting point. Confirm a candidate’s actual job responsibilities and capabilities by asking about past accomplishments.
Most critical is this point: general job management and specific skills can be taught. Desire, aptitude, passion, and values cannot.
It is easier (and much less expensive in the long-run) to hire for the unteachable attributes that make someone the right fit for your team, your mission, and for the role and then train them to do a job…than to hire for skill and deal with a conflict in any of those other characteristics.
When you have an urgent need to fill a specific role, the value of specific skills and experience is understandably higher. But before you hire the wrong fit for the right job, consider alternatives like interim or contracted positions or outsourcing the role to a professional services provider.
If you need help staffing up your team…I’m probably not the expert you need (though I can recommend several!). I would, however, be happy to explore how your team makeup and culture are affecting your ability to get big things done – and what to do about them. Just book a Strategic Clarity Session with me to start the conversation.