Thinking out loud

Hiring, better.

Notes on competency, candidate experience, and what good hiring actually looks like — from the team building noCabins.

“A job description is not a picture of the job. It's a picture of what everyone involved in writing it was afraid to leave out.”

Job descriptions are lying to you
The average JD is a wish list written by committee, edited by legal, and optimized for nobody. Here's why the thing that starts every hiring process is also the thing that breaks it.
Hiring processJob descriptionsTalent acquisitionSkills-based hiring
2026-07-13Read more →

“Anyone can say they own things. The question is what they did when ownership got expensive.”

What ownership actually means — and why it's the hardest thing to fake
Ownership is one of the most overused words in hiring. It's also the most important thing to evaluate. Here's what genuine ownership looks like and how to tell it apart from the performance of it.
CompetencyCandidate assessmentInterviewsOwnership
2026-07-13Read more →

“The first 90 days reveal what the hiring process didn't ask about.”

The first 90 days problem
Forty percent of senior hires fail within 18 months. Most of those failures are predictable from the hiring process that produced them. Here's what goes wrong and how to see it coming.
Hiring processCandidate assessmentTalent acquisitionCompetency
2026-07-13Read more →

“The world's second-largest developer population is filtered out by processes designed to recognise credentials from a different continent.”

India's best tech talent is invisible to most hiring processes
The global tech talent market runs on signals — institution names, company logos, English fluency in a particular register. Those signals are systematically calibrated against Indian talent, and the people who lose are both sides of the hire.
Skills-based hiringBiasIndiaTalent acquisitionCompetency
2026-07-13Read more →

“Skill gets someone through the door. Motivation determines whether they stay, and whether they're any good once they do.”

Motivation is not a soft skill
Companies spend enormous energy evaluating whether candidates can do the job. Almost none of that energy goes into understanding why they want to. That asymmetry explains a lot of costly early exits.
CompetencyCandidate assessmentInterviewsHiring process
2026-07-13Read more →

“Hiring for what someone has done is a bet on the past. Hiring for what someone can do is a bet on the future.”

Competency-based hiring: what it is and why it's the new wave
Credentials open doors. Competency determines what happens once you're inside. Here's why the most forward-thinking companies are ditching pedigree filters and hiring for what people can actually do.
CompetencySkills-based hiringAI hiringBiasTalent acquisition
2026-07-10Read more →

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