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It’s Only Common Sense: Hire for Hunger, Train for Skill

Most companies are hiring incorrectly. They hire for polish when they should be hiring for passion. They hire for credentials when they should be hiring for commitment. They hire for experience when they should be hiring for edge. Then they sit around wondering why the team feels flat, momentum stalls, and why the culture lacks spark.

In my years of experience, I’ve learned that skills can be taught, but hunger cannot.

Skills that can be taught: how to use your CRM, quoting procedures, production workflows, compliance standards, and how to do a presentation. Send them to seminars and give them manuals. Skills that can’t really be taught: how to care, or have initiative and resilience.

Hunger shows up early, asks better questions, and follows up without being told. Hunger wants feedback because it wants to improve. Hunger survives pressure.

In our business—especially in manufacturing, sales, and technical services—the environment is competitive and unforgiving. If someone doesn’t have internal drive, no amount of onboarding will fix that. If you have to push someone every day, you hired wrong. It’s that simple.

Too many leaders get dazzled by résumé logos. They see a big-name company or a prestigious degree and assume performance is guaranteed. It isn’t. I’ve seen hungry candidates from smaller companies outperform polished candidates from global giants within six months. The difference wasn’t intelligence or experience. It was desire.

Cultural fit will outperform résumé prestige almost every time. Here’s what you need to find out: Does the person take ownership? Do they communicate clearly? Do they respect the team? Do they solve problems instead of creating them? A strong culture multiplies performance, but only if everyone buys in. A brilliant jerk will cost you more than an average team player ever will, because culture erosion is expensive.

Accountability actually starts in the interview. You can learn a lot by asking someone to describe a failure. Hungry people own their mistakes by telling you what they learned and how they changed. Complacent people blame circumstances—and their bosses. If they blame everyone else before you hire them, just wait until you’re the boss they’re blaming.

The way someone handles the interview is often the way they’ll handle the job. Pay attention to how much preparation they’ve done for the interview and what kinds of thoughtful questions they ask. Past behavior predicts future performance.

Walk into any organization, and you can feel the energy within minutes. Some places feel alive, while others feel tired. One high-energy performer can lift an entire department. One complacent hire can drag it down. Momentum is fragile, so hire to protect it.

High-performance cultures have clear standards and expect results. They don’t apologize for wanting excellence.

If you tolerate B-team effort, your A-team will leave. Top performers want to be surrounded by people who care as much as they do. What should matter to you is not perfection, but commitment, effort, preparation, and follow-through. When you allow mediocrity, you invite more of it.

I also want to bring up something else: In our business, age 62 is the new 52. I know 62-year-olds who outsell, outwork, and outthink people 20 years younger. I know seasoned engineers and sales professionals whose experience, stability, and wisdom bring depth no training program can replicate. Yet some companies quietly use age as a hiring deterrent. They assume energy declines with a birthdate.

That’s shortsighted. Experience paired with hunger is a force multiplier. Don’t worry about their age. Find out whether they’re engaged, driven, and relevant. If someone shows up sharp, curious, adaptable, and motivated, hire them. Disqualifying talent because of age is fear disguised as policy.

Safe hires feel comfortable. They check boxes and reduce perceived risk. But safe hires rarely change the trajectory of a business. The hungriest hire I ever made didn’t have the strongest résumé. He demonstrated urgency. He followed up relentlessly and asked for feedback weekly. He pushed himself. Within two years, he was outperforming industry veterans because he cared.

If you want average results, hire average ambition. If you want growth, hire hunger. If you want accountability, interview for ownership. If you want cultural strength, hire alignment over ego. If you want long-term success, stop filtering out experienced talent because of arbitrary assumptions about age.

Build a team that wants to win as badly as you do.

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.