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In this episode of 5 Minutes with Andy, Virtual, Inc. CEO Andy Freed shares his top tips for hiring smarter—and explores one of the most common mistakes leaders make when identifying talent.

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Andy shares:

• Why grit, adaptability, and character matter just as much as what’s on a resumé.
• The value of hiring “native speakers” of emerging technology – who can put it to use right away.
• How leaders can rethink the hiring process to identify candidates that will build stronger, more resilient teams geared for the future.

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Hi, and welcome to Five Minutes with Andy. My name is Andy Freed. I'm the CEO of Virtual, Incorporated. For 25 years, we've been helping organizations that are forming, growing and changing as they make their mark on the world. Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about hiring.

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Now, I will tell you, I have always had a little bit of a business crush on Tom Peters.

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I saw him speak for the first time in 1996 and I was just blown away. I've read his stuff ever since, and one of the things that Tom Peters once said is that hiring is the single most important decision you can make for your organization. And you know what? He is exactly right. And so many folks get it a little bit wrong because they're thinking about hiring for that moment and not about hiring for the future.

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Remember when Wayne Gretzky once said that he became great? Not by skating where the puck is, but by skating where the puck is going to be. Same thing with hiring. You got to start thinking about hiring folks for where the puck is gonna be. Now, there's a few things that I keep in mind for that, and a few things that I think are worth looking at for it.

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First, is the idea of not just hiring somebody for what's on their resumé, but you're really trying to hire somebody for what's in their heart and what's in their character. Now, that often means grit and understanding how does somebody overcome challenges? How does somebody deal with adversity? How do they deal with imperfect information?

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Because I don't know about you, but I can tell you that at our organization, sometimes people are facing uncertainty. Sometimes they're facing moments where they don't have all the right information. That's why I love looking at people who have had experiences that show that, when you take a look at what they've done in life.

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Sometimes that's athletes who weren't champions but lost tough games. Sometimes that's folks that have been in difficult situations.

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We have a woman that works for us who worked for years at a microbrewery, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And I always think about she probably took a lot of hard times, when she was working in the microbrewery. She can deal with anything. We have another person that used to run Santaland at Macy's Herald Square. There's nothing you can throw at her for customer service that she can't handle. Now, these aren't exact experiences that we are looking for in the positions, but these made up the character that brought in people that also made a big difference.

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The next piece, and it shouldn't surprise you for folks that have watched us for awhile, has a little bit to do with AI, but the idea of hiring native speakers. Now, a funny thing that happened early in my career is the internet came out. And I know young people pause and imagine life before it, but what happened with it became a divide, a divide between people who were, I called internet native speakers, they grew up using it, and those of us who had to learn it as a second language. The same thing is happening now with AI. There are people that are coming up using AI. It's been out when they were in college. It's been out for a portion of their lives, and there's the rest of us that are trying to catch up.

The idea of hiring native speakers, people who know how to use it and know how to use it right away, is going to make a significant difference in your organization. Making sure that you think about bringing in people who have those skills, who have seen this. And it's not just something they're trying to pick up, but they've been using it for a little while.

Those native speakers can start to influence other folks in your culture, and other folks in your organization to head in a different or in a different direction. That starts building you with an organization that starts gearing for, not just today, but is geared for the future.

The last piece I'll say is something I heard from Howard Putnam. Howard Putnam was one of the founders of Southwest Airlines. Jotted down on a little post-it note, also probably in the mid 90s - the idea of hire the attitude, teach them the skills. If you take those two things together, the idea of hiring for grit, the idea of hiring people who are native speakers of technology, that's all about making sure that you've got people who have the right attitude, then you can teach them and shape them into what your company is all about. And they can be people that can be with you for a good long time, for the future.

So that's just a starting point. As you do that, I will say, you know, it means looking at resumés a different way. Maybe that means looking not just at, was this person in a company just like yours? But looking behind that, what makes up this person? What are the things that make them special? What are the things that show that this is somebody who can come into your organization and show the grit, show the courage and show the tenacity to succeed?

So, thanks for joining me today. I hope you'll spend five minutes with me again sometime soon. If you've enjoyed this video, please make sure you like or subscribe and hope to see you again sometime soon.