[YouKnowBetter]

A person who send their resume with no directly relevant experience (being fresh out of school) but listed an array of holiday jobs that got me intrigued.

During the interview, it took me 10 minutes to make the decision to give him a change. He took it and owned it. Worked hard, learned fast and had a great personality making my other coders (8) feel more at ease, motivated, honest and communicative.

Since then, I make sure HR does not hard filter all responses and try to give at least 1 or 2 outliers a change. Results are what you expect :)

One other great hire was a person that came back into the industry (coding) after a 10-year break (children). Over performed like nobody I have ever seen. She is now a C level at a very large international company, x times my senior.