British entrepreneur and FlightStory founder Steven Bartlett has recently revealed that one of the best employees he hired had a CV that was just two lines long — with “zero” formal experience.
Taking to LinkedIn, the 33-year-old recalled the “critical hiring lesson” and said that his decision was driven not by skills or education, but by behaviour and character displayed during and after the interview process.
Small actions that stood out
Bartlett said the candidate stood out from the moment she entered the building. “She thanked the security guard by name on the way into the building,” he wrote, describing it as an early signal of emotional intelligence.
During the interview, the candidate did not pretend to know everything. “When she didn’t know something, she said, ‘I don’t know that yet, but here’s how I’d figure it out’,” Bartlett said.
What followed sealed the decision. After the interview, the candidate independently learned the answer to the question she had struggled with and emailed it to him within hours. She also sent thank-you notes to everyone involved in the interview process.
On a company culture test that measures ambition, work ethic and emotional intelligence, Bartlett said she scored “extremely high”.
‘One of the best hires I have ever made’
Six months later, Bartlett said the decision had been fully vindicated. “She’s one of the best hires I’ve ever made,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
The experience reinforced what he described as his core hiring philosophy: “Hire the hard thing.” According to Bartlett, culture fit, character and attitude are far more difficult to teach than technical skills or experience.
“You can teach someone Excel in a weekend,” he wrote. “You can’t teach them to really give a *** about the work in a week.”
Similarly, he added, marketing skills, systems and processes can be taught in weeks or months — but ambition, emotional intelligence and the desire to win cannot.
Other recruiters weigh in
Bartlett’s post drew strong support from other recruiters on LinkedIn.
Paula Seery, a recruitment advisor, said many capable professionals are filtered out by automated systems. “Algorithms often filter out strong candidates who don’t perfectly align with the job details,” she wrote, adding that real conversations reveal potential that keywords cannot.
EQ8 Recruit founder Tracey Lee echoed the sentiment, saying seriousness and intent “don’t show up on a CV, they show up in behaviour”. Skills, she said, can be taught — but the willingness to care and follow through must already exist.
Business director Uma McCluskey added that she values “spark, hunger and drive” over narrow experience benchmarks. “Everything else can be taught,” she said.