[sytelus]

There are 3 major things that matter in hiring great people: passion, curiosity and drive. If these 3 things exist then rest typically falls in place. For example, if you are hiring a mechanical engineer, do your initial basic tech vetting but the most important thing in your interview would be to understand why this candidate is interested in mechanical engineering (passion)? What does s/he do to learn things in mechanical engineer that are not related to job (curiosity)? How hard this candidate worked when faced with extremely difficult problems (drive)?

If you can frame these questions right and practice this skill over time, you can minimize passing up great candidates who don't look good on paper but are jackpots in disguise.

[austincheney]

In isolation I agree, but that great person may not be a good fit to the hiring organization entirely due to that greatness. A person with sufficient drive and passion will see one way of doing things that isn't necessarily observable or appreciated to a team of people absent of greatness. In fact this could result in conflict.