A friend of mine runs an agency about an hour north of me. Last winter he was hiring a copywriter and got a cover letter that opened with a line he found offensive. Not offensive in a bad-language way. Offensive in a "she actually told me" way.
She wrote, "I used ChatGPT to help me draft this letter. Here is how I used it and here is what I added."
He passed on her. He told me about it like it was an obvious call. He expected me to nod along. I did not. I asked him what he thought she was actually telling him with that opening line. He looked at me like I had asked the wrong question.
I told him I thought she had just written him the most useful cover letter he had ever read, and he was going to lose the next decade of his career because he could not see it.
We are still friends. He is still hiring the wrong way.
The skill that beats every other skill
In a normal era, you hire for skill. You write the job description with a list of requirements, you interview against the requirements, and you pick the candidate who hits the most boxes. That model worked for thirty years because the half-life of a skill was about thirty years.
That model is dead. The half-life of a tool, workflow, or production technique in my industry is now about eighteen months. Sometimes shorter. The thing my team learned last fall is half-replaced by something better this spring. By the time the new hire I made in January gets up to speed on the way we do something today, the way we do it will have changed twice.
So if you hire for the current skill, you are hiring for a snapshot of a moving picture. The candidate who hits all your boxes today is the one who is going to plateau the fastest, because the boxes are going to change.
Hire for the meta-skill instead. The one that does not depreciate. Curiosity.
A curious person learns the new tool faster than you can write the training doc. A curious person comes to you with a workflow improvement before you knew there was a problem. A curious person reads the article, joins the community, asks the question, fails at the thing, tries it again differently, and eventually shows you something you did not know was possible.
A non-curious person waits to be told.
In a year when the thing being told changes every quarter, that gap is the whole game.
Four questions I actually ask
I want to give you something concrete. Here are four interview questions I use. They are not magic. They surface curiosity if it is there and surface its absence if it is not.
First. "Tell me about the last new tool you tried that you did not have to try." I want the story of the thing they downloaded on a Saturday afternoon because they were curious. If the answer is a long pause and a vague reference to something their company rolled out, I have my answer.
Second. "Tell me about a time you changed your mind about something significant in the last year." Curious people change their minds. The candidate who has not changed their mind about anything is either not curious or not honest. Both are disqualifying for me.
Third. "What is something you are exploring right now that has nothing to do with your job?" Curiosity is not a work behavior. It is a default disposition. If they are curious about woodworking or beekeeping or running a tiny niche newsletter, they will be curious about whatever I throw at them on Tuesday.
Fourth. "Walk me through the last time you tried something new at work and it did not work. What did you do next?" Curiosity without follow-through is procrastination dressed in a nicer outfit. I want the candidate who tried, failed, learned, and tried again. The candidate whose answer is "I went back to doing it the old way" is telling me they will be a quiet anchor on my team.
action
1. Name the most curious person on your team. Tell them you see it this week. 2. Add the four curiosity questions to your next interview loop. 3. Block one hour for one team member to explore something nobody asked them to. 4. Pay the curious person more. Protect their time. Weight their voice heaviest on what to try next. 5. Pick one curious thing for yourself this week with zero obligation to act on it.
What is one curious thing you are letting yourself explore this week with no obligation to act on it?
