Coaching practices for I Keep Hiring for the Most Impressive Resume and Then Watching Them Work Purely Transactionally and I Want to Start Screening for Whether Someone Actually Believes in What We're Doing but I Don't Even Know What Question Would Test That Honestly
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For I Keep Hiring for the Most Impressive Resume and Then Watching Them Work Purely Transactionally and I Want to Start Screening for Whether Someone Actually Believes in What We're Doing but I Don't Even Know What Question Would Test That Honestly, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I keep hiring for the most impressive resume and then watching them work purely transactionally, and I want to start screening for whether someone actually believes in what we’re doing
- I’ve got the conversation booked but I’m staring at a blank page of questions, worried I’ll waste their time asking things I could’ve Googled
- My whole job search is just refreshing job boards and firing off applications into the void, competing with hundreds of strangers for whatever happens to be posted
- We’ve got nice-sounding values up on the wall and the website, but they do nothing in the room when a real hiring or judgment call is on the table
- When I want people to take me seriously I tend to lead with my résumé and how much I know, and I can feel it land as bragging
Practices that may help
- Hire people who share the Why, not just the skills
Skills can be learned; shared belief cannot — filtering for Why-alignment at hiring is the highest-leverage culture move.
Start With Why: Leading Through Purpose - Prepare questions you genuinely don’t know the answer to
Ask about the unwritten realities of the role — the things no job posting reveals.
Informational Interviews: Career Research That Builds Your Network - Build and work a target list of roles and organisations
Replace passive job board browsing with active research into specific organisations you want to understand.
Informational Interviews: Career Research That Builds Your Network - Make core values operational, not decorative
Use core values in hiring, recognition, and decision-making — not just on the website.
The Rockefeller Habits: Scaling Up with Rhythm and Focus - Signal credibility without claiming it
Let your knowledge show through questions and specifics, not through declarations of expertise.
The Trust Equation, Made Practical - Use Socratic questioning to test each belief
Interrogate every claim with “how do I know this is true?” until only bedrock remains.
First-Principles Thinking, Made Usable - Challenge assumptions and invite new thinking
Actively encourage your team to question old ways and generate new approaches.
Transformational Leadership, Made Practical - Use genius mapping in onboarding
Surface a new hire’s geniuses early so you design their role around energy, not just skills.
The 6 Types of Working Genius (Patrick Lencioni) - Learn what each person actually wants from their career and life
Care personally means knowing the goal behind the job — not just what they’re working on, but why.
Caring Personally: The Foundation of Radical Candor - Put the growth of others first
Start from "how do I help this person succeed?" rather than "how do they help me succeed?"
Servant Leadership, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Hire For Why Not Skills
Skills can be learned; shared belief cannot — filtering for Why-alignment at hiring is the highest-leverage culture move.
Hire people who share the Why, not just the skills
- Okrs For People Not Just Companies In A New Job
OKRs pair an Objective — a qualitative, ambitious statement of what you want — with a few measurable Key Results that prove you got there. The framework is best known from Intel and Google as an organizational tool, but its core moves (ambitious goals, hard metrics, a regular review cadence) rest on goal-setting principles that have genuine research support.
- Signs You Got The Job
Ask about the unwritten realities of the role — the things no job posting reveals.
Prepare questions you genuinely don’t know the answer to
- Hiring For Character
Skills can be learned; shared belief cannot — filtering for Why-alignment at hiring is the highest-leverage culture move.
- How Can I Identify Job Postings That Might Be Ghost Jobs
Replace passive job board browsing with active research into specific organisations you want to understand.
Build and work a target list of roles and organisations
- Investing In People
Skills can be learned; shared belief cannot — filtering for Why-alignment at hiring is the highest-leverage culture move.
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