The 70K to 500K Talent Secret: What the Best Hires Have in Common

The candidates most companies are sleeping on aren't hard to find. They're just being filtered out by job descriptions designed to attract the people who already have the job, salary bands that haven't moved with the market, and sourcing strategies that fish in the same three ponds.

The gap between companies paying 70K for a role and companies paying 500K isn't always budget. It's often clarity — about what the role actually requires, what the market actually pays for it, and where the people who can do it at the highest level actually are.

Adam Gellert, founder of Linkus Group and talent marketplace Hipo, has spent two decades finding the gap between where companies look for talent and where the talent actually is. In this episode of Looks Good on Paper, he shares what companies paying at the top of the market have figured out that others haven't, and why the difference is rarely about budget.

What you'll learn:

→  Why the best candidates get filtered out before hiring teams ever see them

→  How salary band construction shapes the quality of candidates you attract

→  Where high-performing companies source differently from everyone else

GUEST

Adam Gellert — Founder, Linkus Group & Hipo

LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamgellert/

YOUR HOST

Anita Chauhan — Fractional CMO, co-host

LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/

CHAPTER MARKERS:

00:00 Intro 

00:35 Introduction 

01:54 Biggest Hiring Mistake 

04:06 Unknown Hidden Bias 

07:27 Most Surprising Hire 

14:21 Wildcard: Can We Finally Get Rid Of The CV? 

17:50 Wrap Up 

18:08 Outro

LISTEN & FOLLOW

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Apple Podcasts   →  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1625835562

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WATCH ON YOUTUBE

https://youtu.be/rYWkrUAIxiQ

POWERED BY WILLO

Hire humans, not resumes  →  https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paper

CONNECT WITH US

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If this episode changed how you think about hiring, share it with one person who needs to hear it. And subscribe — we're rewriting the rules of hiring, one episode at a time.

The gap between average and exceptional hires is rarely a budget problem. It is most often a sourcing and clarity problem: job descriptions written for the wrong candidate, compensation bands set by benchmarking against peers rather than the market for the specific capability needed, and sourcing strategies that reach active candidates while ignoring the passive talent pool entirely.

Show Resources

• Willo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any time
• CV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessments
• Anita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Looks Good on Paper, the podcast that's flipping the script on traditional hiring. We're your hosts. I'm Woody. And I'm Anita. And in each episode we dive into why CVS and the so-called perfect candidate can be misleading. We'll be speaking with industry experts to uncover how skills, potential, and real world experience should be the focus when making hiring decisions. We are here to challenge the norm and rewrite the rules of hiring. So let's get started. welcome to the Looks Good On Paper Podcast. Today we are joined by Adam Gellert. Adam is on a mission to build the greatest marketplace of pre-vetted diverse, high potential candidates and companies. He's reshaping the job application process with candidate experience and helping companies hire their most passionate teammates. I am gonna hand over to you, Adam. I'm sure you can do a better job at, sharing who you are and what you do, and what you're passionate about. Yeah, definitely appreciate the, the intro Anita. yeah, I mean, I've been in the recruiting space for two decades now. Making sure that companies hire their top performers. The best people that they, possibly can. I run an agency called the Linkas Group, out of Toronto, Canada. we basically work with companies that go from one to 250 plus people for all niche, hard to fill roles. We also created a talent marketplace. That was formally called Hired Hippo, and we just rebranded to Hippo for High Potential. I'm really looking to just be known as the number one place where companies can go to higher their high performing talent, at the earliest stages. I also did like the talent help list. I was part of the HRPA, committee, and Disrupt hr. So I'm just very involved in the community and just really care about, founder and, candidate success. Love that. Yes. You are a very big part of the Toronto Tech community and we appreciate all the stuff you've done for us, uh, being from Toronto, myself as well. So why don't we jump in the first question. It'll be kind of like a rapid fire. What's the biggest hiring. Mistake companies keep making, even though it's clearly not working. A mistake that I think is avoidable is really speed. Companies, really struggle to understand business problem that they actually need to solve for who the right person is. Do that work upfront to plan ahead. We always get asked like, Hey, can you help us hire someone? When did you need to hire them As of yesterday. You probably don't need to hire 10 people right now. You could actually probably get away with one or two people. Let's try to figure out, what the business problem is that you need to solve and who are the right people. I usually put it like this. Recruiting is all about getting the best possible person. So the highest quality, in the fastest amount of time, for the lowest cost. Most people are like, oh, you gotta give something up. And I don't think that you do, So, the mistake is not thinking through that and not running fast enough when they know what they're looking for. For sure and just have you seen any good examples of how people and companies can figure out the right fit before they go to market with a job description? One good way is stay interviews or, exit interviews to figure out what happened if it was a role that they already, have hired for, and see what they thought was important, wasn't actually what the, person in the role thought was important. You have to get really good at extracting information. Human behavior and how people communicate to like, extract the right information. You need people to come with transparency, trust, and good attitude to identify that. Just understanding, that business problem by like asking a lot of questions. If it's a role that a company hasn't filled before or done, it's a kind of net new, Maybe ask companies that. We're doing what they're doing, what they've done in the past. Maybe some mistakes. I've worked with, 500 plus founders, so I really, have seen the good, bad and the ugly, and can foresee a lot of, mistakes that people make and help them avoid that. Yeah, if you don't have somebody that you have access to that has been there, done that, just making sure that you're being realistic about your. expectations, and goals of the role? Good examples of this is like a lot of companies think that they, need to make it as hard as Harvard or, as hard as Google to make it into their company. And that's not what they are. As much as they want to think that they are right now, they're not. so I guess like the next thing is, what's a hidden bias companies unknowingly have even when they think they're progressive in their hiring? I. Companies of all kinds of bias. A lot of unconscious bias too in terms of what they think, is gonna be the right. Candidate and, where they might come from. it could be job hopping, which is not necessarily, gonna be a terrible candidate. Really depends on, where they came from, what happened, there's all these. Biases that happen, based on what you think. Maybe that they need somebody with, a sports background or, something specific that they've always done. And they're always kind of like comparing it to somebody else that's done well in the role, but they haven't had the context or the data, to try other things in a, closed experiment, to really understand like who they should be hiring. The bias really comes down to what I think would be a good hire based on maybe what I've been told or what I've tried in the past that didn't work. And just like holding that. And it kind of, tends to, set them back from, actually hiring the right people and moving forward when there's potential right in front of them. How much of the role of an external recruiter has changed from being, oh no, we needed to hire somebody yesterday. What candidate can you send me now to, Hey, this is the process that you should be following. Here's how we can talent map if you partner with us properly. You know, the biggest organizations that don't typically. Have that resource. So how much are you seeing in the market? You are spending time actually advising as opposed to recruiting Yeah, I mean, I, I would say like. Look, I, I always say like, 90% of recruiting is onboarding and then the other 10% is like a lot of consulting. A big portion of that, is absolutely the consulting and everyone wants to avoid hiring mistakes. So hiring is ultimately. in reality, risky. Inherently it's risky for the candidate, it's also risky for the company. And so you want to. come with enough knowledge to understand, how do I minimize this risk, in the best possible way. And I think you need those 10,000 hours. You need to understand, all the nuances. You need to understand what the trend is, what people are looking for, a year from now, for retention. If you're not paying attention to the hiring landscape, then You might be able to hire for right now, but that person might leave in three months from now if you just don't understand like, the nuances of how recruiting has changed. So it is all advising and I typically say that sourcing is the easiest part of recruiting. Especially now with given like the way that the industry has changed. The thing that I don't think can be replaced is, understanding the match and the fit and like what companies should actually be hiring for and paying attention to, changes in those trends. Making sure that you repel and attract the right person, so that you're hiring the right person. So everything that kind of happens after the sourcing part, I think very soon you'll be able to hit a button and like know the best people for the job. I think that sourcing part will go away. I. Totally agree. I, I think the real job of a external recruiter is gonna be helping an organization build. A talent pipeline that easily delivers the talent that you need, but does it in a way that you know, helps hiring managers who aren't, as you say, hiring professionals. They don't have the 10,000 hours, they shouldn't ever have to need the 10,000 hours because people like yourself should be delivering the talent to their business. So yeah. Interesting. Thank you. And we're on to our second last question. Uh, what's the most surprising hire you've ever made or placed and how did their success defy? What looks good on paper bur. You Are not your resume and resumes are, a poor predictor of success. They are, not a great way to hire someone, but what people tend to lean on because it's what they know best and they don't know how to hire without one. A lot of the problem. Ironic because, most of the best hires actually come from. references like somebody that you know you already know or you've worked with before. The, the data's there, right? You move forward without a resume. And that's where most of the successes come from. And most people that complain is like, Hey Adam, I hired someone, they look great on paper, but. They didn't do it really well, and I just continue to remind them, why that didn't work, and people just continued to rely on that. There's been so many examples I would say, oftentimes, i, I've helped companies hire people that, they went in for like 70K then ended up getting like 500K So It's amazing. yeah, it's just in terms of like the potential was there, and obviously the, the company like flourished in that potential. Just to give you an example of like, you want an example of. Somebody who like, looked good but didn't do well. You could do that one too. That sounds fun. I mean, I don't know if I've been involved in any of those. Like Yeah, I'm only involved in the good ones the It's for professional reputation. You don't know any bad candidates, Adam, obviously, I've never been involved directly in, uh, but you heard a story once. in a great resume, gone bad. I've done the opposite, but I've heard these stories that, I'm trying to, honestly, just trying to think through, the opposite, like I would be able to say like, okay, somebody didn't look good on Great Red on paper, or they came and do an interview and said like, they were a bit monotone and we hired them anyways and they ended up being like, really great. Part of that process of figuring that out was the way that we dug into that, potential issue, with the candidate. sure I have like a ton of favorite, uh, US presence as many such cases. There's many such cases of those types of things, right? Like I feel like I've even. And as a hiring manager, when I was running, when I run like marketing departments and things like that, I've had so many of that where they'd come in, I'd be like, wow, this is not who I expected. Also, I took a chance maybe because the resume looked great and they're gone after three months and hours spent on onboarding and hiring and the team and the psychological safety. All the things are disrupted because of it. Yeah, definitely. I people have told me that they hired somebody that, ended up doing three other jobs and was just cashing checks. Um, Obviously they hired them based on, their resume and how they showed up with each interview. Like unfortunately those mistakes happen. there are definitely times where people. Say that they've, you know, had X amount of accomplishments. actually I think that's a really good example. A lot of people say that they'll have these accomplishments at a particular company. And that company might not be a challenger company. It might be an easier company let's say, I don't know, Amazon or Apple, where they have a lot more resources than a smaller company. And so, what actually got them those accomplishments was the team around them. And then if, so you assume that okay, I'm gonna take this person with all these accomplishments from a competitor, but I don't have those things available. And so they needed those things to be successful. So you just kind of have to see in, in an interview, dig behind the resume. Like who, how, how much were you involved in this particular project? Were you the leader in Yeah. Were you the leader? Were you the executor? Can I talk to your customers about what involvement that you played in this particular role? Just like. Digging behind that, doesn't have to take a long time to do, but, that'll help. Yeah, it's so true. I, obviously, I recruited for 11 years for salespeople and I never saw a sales person's resume that said. Hey, I kind of missed Q1. And then Q2, I scraped the barrel, but it was actually a customer that my sales manager used to work with and he gave it to me. And then, end of the year we bought in an absolute whale as a business. And I just put that against my number on my resume. So, it is just, it is so true, like the paper. On face value is so difficult sometimes a to believe and b, to like verify, who did actually deliver what they delivered. And, I dunno if you know this horrific stat Adam, but 72% of people lie on their resumes according to Business Insider, which I think that's pretty terrible for two reasons. One is like. I'm already assuming when I see a CV or a resume that somebody's lied on it. And then number two, there's 28% of people that aren't lying and like, guys, you should be lying probably.'cause everybody else is I'm judging you as if you are. I've definitely heard that stat. I, I tell 'em, my clients to like hire for, What I call like. Tag, trust, attitude, and grit. And so, sometimes that like you have to kind of like learn, trust can be given, but like you need to work with that person directly to make sure that what they're saying is truthful. And, yeah, like you said, like nobody's gonna kind of showcase like all their bloopers or like what they didn't do. And sometimes those can be great, like they're learnings, like Mark Cuban was fired, like Jerry Seinfeld was fired. Like there's people that get fired for. Things that become, super successful. But we just want to be transparent about like what happened, who was involved here? Is that gonna be aligned to the next role, there was another stat, I can't remember exactly what it is, but I just heard this very recently actually, where you're like, X times more successful if you bring the team you had with you. Instead of just coming on your own. Parlays to kind of what you're saying. Yeah, that's really interesting and it's also interesting, like the trust. I love that tag, trust, attitude, grit, the trust that, that your Imagine. I leave as a leader and I bring the whole team with me to my next place. Like, that's a great indicator of being a trusted individual, right? That they would actually go, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump ship and, and join you. so yeah, super interesting and very actionable. The grit piece too. I think that if I've seen on a resume when I'm hiring, like someone taking initiative, doing stuff that way, like showing exemplifying maybe in their day to day life as well. Like, oh, I started this thing just for fun. I have this project. I do like seeing that type of autonomy. Then that would lead itself to me feeling like a trust. The individual when they come in a little bit more, right? That they have that desire and self, self-starter, right? Yeah, like we're working on this, marketing manager for a D two C product right now for a client of ours, like the sports equipment. And they like, love that this person, has explained their project, that they did on the side like their obsession with, trying to move the industry forward. So it's like, everything that you are involved with, do, or your experiences, can add to that attitude? For sure. And now for our last wild card question, Adam, you and I have talked about this in the past, but you've been an outspoken advocate for the removal of CVS over time, and I just wanted to kind of see where you're at with that. If you think it's possible. And if you think that something like a big change, like removing the CV or decentering it from the hiring process is actually something that we can do. Ooh, this is juicy. you know, you can only lead a horse to water. I mean, I don't think it can happen because I've been trying for the last decade, I just think that people inevitably fall back on What they know to be true. I think I'm optimistic. Just with LinkedIn being such a powerful, tool, continuing to gain a ton of popularity. So I think like the live living resume where you can't lie, which is what we talked about before. You know, everything's kind of out in the open. You can kind of be somewhat called out for your BS or Yeah. Or praised for the achievements that you actually did. I think that, that there's potential, I just. Don't see it on a mass adoption, unfortunately. When I was going around and pitching this, resume less world, maybe there was like 10% adoption on it. Well the 10% were very interested. They were like. I love this. I can't wait. I don't hire with resumes. I don't even ask people to send me their resume. If they send it to me, I'll throw it out and tell, show me something else. I'd rather see them have like a website or their own URL or whatever. So, and I know a lot of people, I've talked to a lot of people that are even in steal mode right now trying to create something. And you guys obviously are building in that area. So I know that there's a lot of people that are passionate and, wanna see it come out. There's, two people here that have to come to the table and, I don't think educating people is gonna help. I think it's just gotta be something where it's gonna be easier for them to do and like more obvious for them to do than they did before. Because I, I feel like people are always like, well, I looked at their resume and, I thought they were gonna be good. So that's like, they use that as like their, excuse on why they you don't get fired for hiring a IBM sort of mentality, isn't it? Like, well, I use their resume. I think obviously, I disagree or maybe not, obviously I think, I think the world will be rid of resumes and CVS in the next 12 months. What I do agree is like to your point of, something's gonna have to happen. For that to become a reality. I think the scary thing is that what's gonna happen is somebody's gonna write a cv. With ai, that person's gonna get hired, and then some form of something bad, some form of litigation. You know, all of a sudden that becomes like national news. I, I actually think there's gonna be like a moment in time where people suddenly go. Holy moly, we cannot use CVS anymore because they are just being written by AI and the people we're hiring are not the people that they say they are. And then we'll see from there. I like that. And I can see even past that where it's a one big company, we'll adopt it and then we'll have a domino effect and then we'll have people speaking out against it. Yeah. Hopefully I mean, I'm team witty. Like, if you can make that happen in 12 months, I would be very happy. Trust me. I am like, I'm in your corner. I just, Don't, don't think it can happen. Yeah, It's 600 years, Adam, that we've gotta change, like, you know, if it was invented in the 14 hundreds, the cv, so quite entrenched to say the least. Well thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and your opinions and insights. Adam. that's it for now. Thank you for being on the looks. Good on Paper podcast and we look forward to seeing what you're building in the future. Awesome. Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure. And, shout out to both of you for, uh. Going down this path. So thanks for tuning in to Looks Good on Paper. We hope today's conversation helps you rethink what really matters when it comes to hiring. Don't forget to subscribe, share with your network, and stay tuned for more insightful discussions that are shaking up the entire hiring process. Catch us next time as we continue to challenge the status quo. Until then, remember, it's not what looks good on paper, it's what they can do.