Inspect the Work, Not the Person
Evaluate what candidates personally created instead of trusting logos and titles.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 99%
Replace résumé-based pattern matching with a detailed inspection of the candidate’s actual work. Employer logos and impressive titles may indicate access to good environments, but they do not show what the individual created, decided, or improved. Ask candidates to reconstruct important projects, including the initial conditions, their personal responsibility, the artifacts produced, the trade-offs made, and the results. Probe three or four layers beneath general claims and distinguish individual contribution from the efforts of a strong surrounding team. References and work samples should confirm the account. Use reputation only as context, not as the primary evidence of competence.
Origin
Brian Balfour attributed the phrase to Ray Dalio and applied it to marketing-leader hiring on Marketing Against The Grain.
Core principles
- 01Past employer prestige is only a proxy for ability.
- 02Titles do not reveal a candidate’s personal contribution.
- 03Concrete artifacts and decisions provide stronger hiring evidence.
- 04Evaluation should go several layers deeper than the résumé.
How to run it
- 1
Choose representative work
Ask the candidate to identify projects that best demonstrate the capabilities required for the role.
Pro tip Request artifacts or detailed reconstructions rather than polished career summaries.
Watch out Do not let the candidate substitute employer prestige for a specific example.
- 2
Trace personal contribution
Determine exactly what the candidate created, decided, changed, and owned.
Pro tip Ask what would have happened differently without their involvement.
Watch out Team outcomes are not automatically individual evidence.
- 3
Probe the mechanism
Explore the reasoning, constraints, alternatives, execution, and measurable or observable results.
Pro tip Continue asking for specifics until the causal chain is clear.
Watch out Stop treating fluent storytelling as proof when underlying details remain vague.
- 4
Corroborate the evidence
Use artifacts, metrics, and references to validate the candidate’s account.
Pro tip Score demonstrated work before reviewing résumé prestige.
Watch out References that only confirm likability or title do not validate performance.
In the wild
A candidate cites a major rebrand at a famous software company. The founder asks to see the positioning brief, clarify which decisions the candidate owned, identify who produced the campaign, and explain how customer evidence shaped the work.
→ The founder discovers whether the candidate led the mechanism or merely occupied a senior role nearby.
Common mistakes
Logo chasing
Prestigious employers create confidence without demonstrating that the candidate can reproduce relevant work.
Stopping at outcomes
A successful company outcome can conceal a small or unclear personal contribution.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders assessing leaders in a function they do not know deeply.
Not ideal for
Roles where no work samples, decisions, references, or attributable outcomes can be examined.
From the transcript
“inspect the work, not the person.”
“they don't actually dig the three to four layers deeper to actually look at what did that person create.”
“Like what did they actually do? What was the actual work of the person?”
From the episode
Brian Balfour Reveals How To Build An A+ Marketing Team From Scratch (#183)
Brian Balfour