The Myth of the Five-Minute Read

I have spent thousands of hours interviewing people.

I have sat across the table from Project Managers, Superintendents, and Executives. I have read more resumes than I can count.

In the beginning of my career, I thought I had a superpower. I thought I could talk to someone for ten minutes and know everything about them. I thought I could predict their future.

I was wrong.

Actually, I was arrogant.

The longer I do this, the less I rely on a “gut feeling.” The more people I meet, the more I realize how deep human beings really are.

Gut is good. Listen to it. But train it. Calibrate it. Study it. Educate it. Inform it. Track it. Hold it accountable.

The Closer You Look, The More You See

There is a concept called a fractal. It is a pattern that repeats forever. Think of a coastline. From high up in a plane, the coast looks like a simple, smooth line.

But if you land the plane and walk on the beach, it is not smooth. It has jagged rocks. It has hidden caves. It has millions of grains of sand.

People are exactly like that coastline.

From a distance, a candidate looks simple. “He is a rainmaker. He brings in work. He is loud.”

But then I sit down with him. I ask about his failures. I ask about his team. Suddenly, the simple line breaks apart. I see his fears. I see his specific way of solving problems. I see the jagged rocks.

The more questions I ask, the more complexity I find.

The Danger of “I Just Know”

I often hear hiring managers say, “I don’t need a long process. I can read a guy in five minutes.”

When I hear that, I get nervous.

That is not insight. That is laziness.

When we think we can “figure someone out” instantly, we stop listening. We look for simple labels for complex people. We try to fit a whole human life into a tiny box.

After all my years in this business, I know one thing for sure. You cannot unpack a human soul in a one-hour lunch meeting.

What We Can Actually Do

So, if people are so complex, is interviewing a waste of time?

No. But we have to change our goal.

My job as a professional matchmaker is not to judge a person’s worth. My job is to predict how they will work in your company.

I cannot know everything about them. But I can find the truth about the things that matter for the job.

• I look for patterns. People usually do what they have done before.
• I look for values. I listen to how they talk about others.
• I look for proof. I dig into the specific steps they took to build a project.
• I listen when they don’t realize it. Who are they when they forget to put on the mask?

Wisdom is Knowing What You Don’t Know

The best leaders in construction are not the ones who think they know it all. They are the ones who know what they are up against.

It is the same with hiring.

We need to have some humility. We need to admit that people are messy and deep. When we admit that, we stop guessing. We start doing the real work of digging into the details.

You can know they are messy because you yourself are messy.

I have done this for a long time. And the smartest thing I have learned is to respect the complexity of the person sitting across from me.