It was 3:08 PM. I’d just debriefed four candidates, my next interview hadn’t shown up, and I still hadn’t eaten lunch. Then my phone buzzed. John was in the lobby, late.
I walked out prepared to dismiss him inside fifteen minutes. His resume was strong, but the lateness was all I could think about. At that stage in my career, I’d interviewed hundreds of people face to face, and I’d grown confident, maybe too confident, in my ability to make snap judgments from the smallest details.
I was known for it. Once, I ended an interview for a senior leadership role because the candidate pulled a folder from his bag and it had a hole in the pocket, shredded bits of notebook paper spilling everywhere. I ended it on the spot. In fairness, I was still learning how to hire.
I sat down with John planning to make it quick. But the more time I spent with him, the clearer his potential became. He had a real track record of success, and he was steady, adaptable, and smart.
He hadn’t addressed the late arrival, so I asked him about it directly. New to San Francisco, he’d caught the wrong train, and he owned the mistake completely. No excuses. He had about 80% of what we were looking for, and that stood out against everyone else I’d seen.
We made an offer, and he accepted, even though it meant a career-change risk, reporting to someone younger, and a salary cut. He became one of the most successful hires I ever made, and he went on to lead and hire for his own team. I almost passed on him over a train mistake.
Showing up late to an interview is a real data point, and experienced software sales recruiters treat it as one. A candidate who’s late to an interview may be late to client meetings, and great hires don’t let small issues with big consequences slide. When John didn’t raise the lateness himself, that worried me more than the lateness did.
But one data point is not a verdict. The mistake I nearly made wasn’t taking the lateness seriously. It was letting one trivial detail override a strong track record and everything else the interview was telling me. Rigid requirements screen out candidates who go on to outperform expectations, and the more confident you get in your snap judgments, the more often it happens.
Investigate the concern instead of ruling on it. When something bothers you, a late arrival, a weak answer, a gap on the resume, ask the candidate about it rather than making it an instant no. How they handle the question often tells you more than the thing itself. John taking full responsibility told me more than his being late did.
When one read is unclear, get another. If a single interview or skills test isn’t giving you a clean signal, don’t force a decision off it. Add a reference check, another conversation, or a working session. Overweighting one data point is how good candidates get lost.
Update your criteria as you learn. Track which traits and interview signals actually correlate with strong performance on your team. Over time, that data matters more than any individual hiring instinct, including yours. Review your criteria regularly and refine it as each hire teaches you something.
Remember that fit is specific to your team. What works on one team fails on another, depending on the manager, the culture, and the role. A candidate who was great somewhere else isn’t automatically great for you, and one who looks imperfect on paper may be exactly right. Define your real must-haves, and hold everything else loosely.
When a hire underperforms, it isn’t always the hire. Look at how the role is structured, how onboarding and training are handled, what support exists across enablement and solutions engineering, and how clearly expectations are set around quota and the sales cycle. A sharp rep will fail in a broken system, and blaming the hire keeps you from fixing the real problem.
John worked because he had the substance and because we gave him a real shot. The best hires usually come down to both: a candidate with the traits that matter, and a hiring manager willing to look past the one detail that doesn’t. If you’re building a search and want help finding that kind of hire, that’s the conversation worth having.
