💃 Hiring is Hard🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerd!

“Live. Laugh. Love.”

“Keep Calm. Carry on.”

“Hire for Character. Train for Skill.” 😃

Cringey quotes you find in kitchen decor and Linkedin posts 😊.

…and then Monday morning hits and you're staring at a req for a Senior Salesforce Architect wondering if "great vibes" will get your CPQ implementation across the finish line 🤔. Hiring is hard.

Let's cook with this one 👇

THE CASE FOR CHARACTER

Character > Technical Skill ??

Here's the thing, the data backs it up 😲.

A Leadership IQ study found that 89% of hiring failures come from attitude problems, not technical gaps.

Only 11% of new hires fail because they couldn't do the work. The other 89% flamed out because of coachability, temperament, or emotional intelligence.

Think of it like a restaurant kitchen-

✅ You can teach someone to julienne a carrot.

✅ You can walk them through a roux.

❌ You cannot teach someone to keep calm ^{and carry on} when 12 tickets hit the kitchen at the same time and the line cook just called in sick.

That composure, that grit, that willingness to take feedback without folding like a lawn chair? You either walk in the door with it or you don't.

And the cost of getting it wrong is brutal. The cost of replacing a bad hire can be multiples of their annual salary 💸.

A GAP IN THE RECIPE?

Where “Hire for Character!” Falls Short

On the other hand 🖐️

"Hire for character, train for skill" assumes your organization has the time, budget, and patience to actually train.

Most don't 🤷🏻.

The kitchen analogy breaks down when you realize most companies aren't Michelin-star restaurants with a five-year apprenticeship program.

They're food trucks.

They need someone who can work the grill today 🫡.

In the Salesforce ecosystem, this is painfully real.

You can hire the most coachable, positive, team-first human being on the planet. But if your org is mid-migration from Classic to Lightning, running a janky CPQ config, and your data model looks like someone played Jenga with custom objects... character alone isn't saving you.

You need scar tissue 😤.

You need someone who's seen the fire before 😠.

Character without competence is just a really likable bottleneck.

DOOR NUMBER 3

The Ability to Learn

What about an Option 3 ?

Hire for learning agility 🧠.

Learning agility is the ability to figure things out in real time, in contexts you've never seen before. It combines the best parts of character - curiosity, humility, resilience - with the best parts of skill - pattern recognition, speed to competence, applied problem solving.

Back to the kitchen- this is the cook who's never made bouillabaisse, but watches the head chef do it once, asks two sharp questions, and nails it on the second try 🧑‍🍳.

The World Economic Forum's 2025 workforce analysis puts adaptability, creative thinking, and curiosity among the fastest rising traits employers are screening for. These are meta-skills, the engine underneath both character and technical chops.

A learning-agile hire brings you three things at once-

💥 They close skill gaps fast because they're wired to learn

💥 They bring the character traits you want because curiosity and humility are baked in

💥 They future-proof your team because the next platform shift won't break them

FINAL THOUGHTS

Takeaway

"Hire for character, train for skill" gets you 70% of the way there.

The missing 30% is what separates a good hire from a great one.

Character is the foundation. Skill is the toolkit. But learning agility is the instinct that tells a great chef when the recipe needs to change.

Hire the person who can taste as they go, adjust on the fly, and plate something beautiful even when the original plan goes sideways.

DECISION CHECKLIST: YOUR NEXT HIRE

🤔 Can this person describe a time they figured something out with zero training? (Learning agility.)

🤔 When they hit a wall, do they ask better questions or just try harder? (Curiosity vs. stubbornness.)

🤔 Have they successfully changed contexts, industries, or platforms? (Demonstrated adaptability.)

🤔 Does your org actually have the infrastructure to train for skill? Be honest.

🤔 Are you hiring for the role today, or the three roles this person will need to play in 18 months?

SOUL FOOD

Today’s Principle

and now....Your Salesforce Memes