After reviewing 10,000+ CVs… I think we’ve got it wrong.
I’ll probably get some pushback on this…
But CVs are the biggest blocker to hiring great people.
Not “a bit flawed.”
Not “in need of improvement.”
A blocker.
CVs became standard practice in the 1950s.
Now think about what else came from that era 👇
Credit Cards → now contactless, digital wallets, invisible payments
Colour Televisions → now streaming, on-demand, personalised content
The Commercial Jet Airliner → now global travel in hours, not days
We’ve completely reinvented how we pay, travel, and communicate since the 1950s…
But hiring? Still stuck on a document.
We’re still asking people to summarise their entire career on 2 pages…using a format that hasn’t meaningfully changed in decades.
In a world where:
Roles are evolving faster than ever
AI is reshaping skill requirements
Leadership is more about behaviour than experience
…we’re still hiring based on bullet points and job titles.
Here’s the problem 👇
CVs reward people who are good at writing about work. Not necessarily people who are good at doing the work.
They hide:
How someone actually leads
How they make decisions under pressure
How they influence teams
How they adapt when things go wrong
And yet… we treat them as the foundation of every hiring decision.
I see it every day.
Great candidates are overlooked because they don’t “sell themselves” well on paper. Average candidates flying through because they know how to play the CV game.
That’s backwards.
So, we’ve started doing things differently.
Not removing CVs completely (yet)… But reducing their importance massively.
Instead, we focus on:
Real scenarios candidates have to think through
Short conversations that test decision-making
Evidence of outcomes, not just responsibilities
How someone communicates and leads in real time
Because that’s what actually predicts performance.
