April 7, 2026
Everyone says they hire for potential.
They don’t.
What most companies actually do is hire someone who’s already done the exact same job before - usually at a direct competitor, in the same market, using the same playbook.
It feels logical. Sensible, even.
Low risk. Quick win. Job done.
And to be fair - sometimes it is the right call.
Sometimes the perfect candidate really is the one who’s done the job before, in your space, and can hit the ground running from day one.
But the problem? That’s become the default approach. Not the exception.
If every company hires the “ready-made” candidate:
Talent just circulates between the same businesses. Teams start to look eerily similar and genuinely different thinking never gets a look in.
Over time?
Ideas feel familiar. Progress slows. Growth becomes incremental at best and stagnant at worst.
Hiring for experience gives you predictability. But it doesn’t always give you progression.
The best hires don’t always look perfect on paper.
They don’t tick every box.
They haven’t always worked in your exact sector.
Their CV doesn’t mirror your job spec line for line.
And that’s often the point.
Because what they do bring is far more valuable:
This is where real upside lives. Not in replication - but in translation.
Because assessing transferable talent is harder. There’s no tidy checklist.
It takes judgement.
It takes time.
And it takes a bit of confidence to back something that isn’t an obvious “yes”.
So instead, companies lean into process:
All designed to reduce risk. But in doing so, they often remove the very candidates who create differentiation.
AI in hiring is brilliant at spotting patterns. But only the patterns you ask it to find.
So if your brief says:
“Must have done X in Y industry”
That’s exactly what it returns. More of the same.
Now again, sometimes, that is what you need. But if that’s all you ever look for, you’ll consistently miss the candidates who don’t fit neatly into those boxes.
The ones who are adjacent, not identical. The ones whose strengths don’t keyword-match perfectly. The ones whose potential doesn’t jump off the CV.
Filtered out - before a conversation even happens.
Efficient? Yes. Comprehensive? Not even close.
The best hiring managers don’t ignore experience. They just don’t rely on it entirely.
They know when a role genuinely requires someone who’s “done it before” - and when it doesn’t.
And when they’re open to broader profiles, they focus on three things:
1. Pattern Recognition
Can they explain why something worked, not just what they did?
2. Learning Velocity
How quickly have they adapted across different challenges or environments?
3. First-Principles Thinking
If you take away their previous playbook, can they still solve the problem?
These are the signals that actually travel.
Across roles. Across sectors. Across businesses.
You won’t uncover any of this through CV screening alone and you definitely won’t uncover it through AI. You uncover it through conversation.
Through how someone thinks.
How they approach problems.
How they make decisions.
At Stonor, we spend a disproportionate amount of time doing exactly that. Because sometimes the best hire is the obvious one.
But often - it isn’t.
And if your process only ever surfaces the obvious, you’re leaving a lot of value on the table.
Most companies optimise for safety. The best companies optimise for judgement.
They know when to hire experience and when to back potential.
The risk is hiring someone who looks right.
The reward is hiring someone who is right.
And those two things are similar just often enough… to be misleading.
