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The author argues that standard hiring practices—especially heavy reference checking—don't actually predict future performance better than we think they do. After 50+ hires, he's learned that we mistake subjective judgment and past narratives for objective truth, while ignoring how much a person's performance depends on their environment and manager.
- Multiple references from the same company or network often reflect a shared narrative rather than independent information, and references themselves are biased participants, not neutral observers.
- Past experience is a poor predictor for roles involving rapidly changing technologies and requirements; someone's ability to learn and adapt matters more than years in adjacent roles.
- Most hiring advice is anecdotal autobiography—individual companies rarely hire enough people in similar roles to prove statistically which methods actually work, yet we treat personal success as universal methodology.
- We evaluate candidates heavily but rarely assess whether the company, manager, or system will actually enable good performance, treating professional capability as an individual trait rather than a system outcome.