Hire for What’s Next, Not What’s Done

Growth comes from potential, not pedigree!

Experience is comforting. It looks good on paper, reassures hiring managers, and gives leaders the illusion of reducing risk. But here’s the truth: experience is one of the weakest predictors of future performance.

Studies show it explains less than 20% of job success, while 70–80% of hiring failures come down to behaviour, judgement, or adaptability — not experience.

If you want people who can deliver what your organisation needs next, you need to hire for capability, not nostalgia.

Experience tells you where someone has been. Capability tells you where they can go.

Experience reflects past environments, structures, and cultures. Capability reflects how someone will operate in your environment, with your ambiguity, at your pace.

A candidate who “led a team of 50” in a structured organisation may struggle to lead a team of five in a messy one. A candidate who “owned a global process” may freeze when asked to build one from scratch.

Experience is context‑dependent. Capability is context‑responsive.

Case Example: The Perfect CV That Couldn’t Deliver

A creative agency hired a Head of Operations from a global brand. Flawless CV. Impressive scope. Polished interview.

Three months in, she couldn’t operate without layers of structure. She needed clarity the organisation didn’t yet have. She needed processes that didn’t exist. She needed teams that weren’t there.

She had experience. She didn’t have capability.

The agency eventually hired someone with half the experience but twice the adaptability, and everything moved faster.

The CV theatre problem

Hiring for experience often leads to:

• Over‑hiring seniority
• Under‑hiring capability
• Recycling the same talent pool
• Hiring for prestige instead of performance
• Bringing in people who can talk but not deliver

Experience is a story. Capability is evidence.

What capability actually looks like

• Judgement
• Adaptability
• Clarity
• Systems thinking
• Behaviour

These determine whether someone will succeed in your environment… not whether they’ve done a similar job somewhere else.

Talent‑Unboxed Insight

Most organisations hire for experience because it feels safe. Talent‑Unboxed helps you hire for capability, which is what actually drives performance.