Resume Gets You Hired And Character Gets You Fired

The resume is neat, confident, and full of bullet points. The reality is a human being who shows up on Monday morning, and sometimes that gap is not a gap at all, it is a canyon. Greg and I talk about why skills may get someone hired, but character is what decides whether they last, especially once the pressure hits and the probationary period ends.

We dig into “interview theater,” the buzzword-heavy game of keyword bingo, and how vague claims like “team player” or “highly coachable” can hide a lack of ownership. Then we map out the workplace types most leaders eventually recognize, from the calm delegator who dodges accountability/ to the professor who filibusters meetings/ the missing-in-action avoider/ the chaos-loving crisis manager/ the historian who blocks new ideas, and the idea thief who drains trust. None of these patterns are about raw incompetence. They are about misalignment, inconsistency, and the behaviors that quietly damage culture.

We also get practical with character-based hiring. We share simple tools like the receptionist test, the mistake probe, and how to listen for a clear career narrative, execution proof, business acumen, and adaptability. We even pull leadership examples from pop culture, contrasting the dysfunction of Michael Scott with the people-first steadiness of Ted Lasso. If you want better hiring decisions, fewer “how did we miss this?” moments, and a stronger leadership toolbox, press play, then subscribe, share, and leave us a review with your biggest hiring red flag.

Transcript

Resumes Vs Reality In Hiring

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Well, hello, and welcome to our podcast, Success, Secrets, and Stories. I'm your host, John Wondolowski, and I'm here with my co-host and friend, Greg Powell. Greg? Hey everybody. And when we put together this podcast, we wanted to put out a helping hand and help that next generation and help answer the question of what does it mean to be a leader? Today we want to talk about a subject that I think supports that concept. So today's podcast, we want to talk about something that I thought was kind of fun. Resumes versus reality. Why we hire for skills, but fire for character. Whenever we talk about hiring, we always start with bullet points clean, professional, skills in terms of credentials, years of experience, certifications. And you'll hear words like must be proficient in Excel, strong communicator, team player. We all know those buzzwords. Ten years of experience, five years of experience, but on paper it sounds very reassuring. It's because the bullet points feel safe, they feel objective, they give us a comfort, a comforting illusion that the people are predictable if we measure them carefully enough. But today we're going to talk about that gap, really a canyon, between the resume promises and what actually shows up on Monday morning. Because sometimes the resume says, I'm an MIT educated engineer, and in reality, says I tried to expense a magician for my kid's birthday party on the company credit card.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

And that's the moment when HR quietly closes the applicant tracking system and opens a brand new document entitled, How Did We Miss This? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

So today's episode is about that disconnection. The difference between professional performance and the human reality. The reason we hire is for skills, but we fire for character. Because skills can be trained, processes can be documented, but character. Character shows up uninvited, and it shows up fast.

Interview Theater And Keyword Bingo

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Usually right after the probationary period ends, you know, around 90 days. So true. And we're gonna have a little fun with this. So let's get started. So let's start with resume fluffing, or as I like to call it, interview theater. Because hiring, whether we admit it or not, is a performance on both sides. Candidates perform competence, employers perform culture. But everyone dresses slightly nicer than usual and pretends this is how they normally talk. There's a game hiring managers play, sometimes subconsciously. We call it keyword bingo. You've seen these on resumes. They're not resumes so much as collections of buzzwords stacked on top of each other like a corporate jingle. Words like synergy, cross-functional, thought leader, results-driven, self-starter, and one of my favorites, team player.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah. And and the problem isn't the words themselves. Those words can mean something. The problem is that when you ask the follow-up questions, so can you tell me a time where you demonstrated, bullet point, whatever, the answer evaporates like a mirage.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Right. Sometimes it's a lot of we did some stuff and there were some changes, and it was a great learning experience. But you don't get actual verbs, you don't get a sequence, you don't really get it or feel any ownership. Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

So let's decode some of my favorite resume bingo squares. When a resume says expert in managing difficult personalities, what it often means is I'm a difficult personality.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

That translation service is complimentary. We don't even bill for it.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Or how about thrives in a fast-paced environment, which really means I have no idea what's happening, but I'm moving very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Arms flailing, stack of messages flying, calendar on fire.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah. And then there's my personal favorite, highly coachable, which coming from certain managers, actually translates to, I'm a micromanager, and you need to understand your emotional roller coaster rides about to begin before we proceed. So today we want to explore the space between professional expectations and human behavior. And that's the place where resumes end and people begin. Because once someone has been in your organization for 60 to 90 days, something fascinating happens.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

You stop using their job title and you start using descriptors.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yep. Yep. And organizations develop their own internal languages, their own folklore. And it's usually that whispered warning.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

No, HR might call them archetypes. Employees call them, oh, hang on a second, you'll see.

unknown 5:40

Yeah.

Workplace Archetypes That Derail Teams

SPEAKER_01 5:41

And MBR's got another approach to it too. So we're gonna be we're gonna be talking about those, but these are characteristics of people. They're they aren't villains, they aren't bad people. They're just very human expressions of misalignment. Those people whose resumes promise one thing and their behavior delivers something entirely different. Let's talk about the first one. The CEO or slacker in chief, or really in the MBR kind of environment, it's the achievement level. And this person is always calm. They didn't earn the calm, they just see things calmly. Aggressively, someone becomes aggressive, they're almost glib. Deadlines, they're calm, no problem. Crisis? They call it being strategic. And they delegate everything, including decisions like where are we gonna order lunch? Who's gonna handle the monthly report? They'll tell you this is about empowerment, but you know what the tell or the giveaway is? Their calendar. There's a solid block of 11 to 1230 on your calendar for deep focus, which by the way aligns perfectly with the long walks that they take to Starbucks that's across the street.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

So regarding emotional response from folks like this, they're often harried and impatient. They're hyper-emotional, and they can be aggressive.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yeah, and that's the MBR approach and a wonderful example. And there are other examples. Let's talk about the conformance level, or sometimes they they nickname them the professors. They know it all. They talk about current corporate rhetoric and use information that they've gathered through LinkedIn or the books they've read, and they pontificate during meetings. They expand on their own buzzwords and they have almost their own language. And they also create these wonderful things of like a filibuster where you can't get them to stop talking.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

When I think of these folks, the way they behave as far as activity, John, they have pointless activities, they reduce risk taking, and they constantly need praise.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah, a perfect example of a conformance. Then there's the, you know, missing in action, the unconscious level. And this person, this kind of individual, well, they try to manipulate and justify their own plans and their own results. When they're looking at data and they're looking at how they're interacting with other people, they're trying to make sure that they're not making any commitments. And this kind of individual is unexpected or disruptive in terms of how they manipulate their information in their meetings. They're constantly talking about data that really doesn't mean anything. And they really don't want to take any commitments. When there's an assignment in a meeting, they are like the last person that raises their hands, or sometimes just avoid the meeting altogether.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

You know, these folks, as far as their emotional response, they're unrelated to reality. Extreme shifts and great stress and anxiety is evident.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah, it picks it from the MBR side perfectly. The next one that I think is kind of interesting is also the individuals that are managers in crisis, and they're always like the most key, important person within the organization because of their style and their approach. In the MBR kind of approach, it's called a conformance level. And if you remember the book by Tom Peters called Thriving in Chaos, it's that kind of individual. And then they do thrive in it. They do find that disorder as a point of giving them the spotlight, but they're really the catalyst of adopting what is there in the system. They're not original thinkers, they're just going along with the plan that that's staying the course.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

And from a relationship standpoint, John, these folks have drama roles, psychological games they play.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

And then the next one I think is interesting is the historian or the self-protective level. These individuals remember how things used to be done and will quickly remind you how it worked and their attempt that they tried to do 20 years ago didn't work or 10 years ago, but they're not really the part of the team to help see if there's some justice of doing it again. They call themselves the devil's advocates, sometimes you'll hear that term. The first ones to try to pull the concepts apart because in the history of the organization, no one had that kind of creative thought.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

You know, John, the way these folks function intellectually is that they're blind to factual data. They have difficulty with decision making. There's a chronic distortion of reality.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah. And the last one I think I have seen this character in my own career is the idea thief, which is really a byproduct or a description of the achievement level. And this person sees a very good idea from the staff, and he takes it for himself because it's self-promotion. The individual that I think of, I had come up with an idea for energy management, and he was giving a presentation and he substituted his name where I had written in my name during the announcement. It's like amazing. Idea thieves are out there, and these individuals do not embrace the idea of true team concepts. The world comes through their focus, through their lens. I don't know, Greg, what would you describe them in an MBR kind of approach?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

So when I think of this individual as far as their activity involvement, they avoid challenging activities. They have very little self-confidence, and they work as a kind of an anxiety avoidance, not a source of satisfaction. Yeah, that's that's probably a much better description.

Hiring For Character Before Commitment

SPEAKER_01 11:53

So why does all this matter? Why are we bringing up these different examples? None of these characters are about incompetence. Most of them are pretty technically capable. What they lack is alignment.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Because character isn't about being nice, it's about being consistent.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

It's who you are when the pressure's on, when the meeting runs long, when the client is angry, when no one is watching. And that's why companies hire for skills, but fire for character. So, how to hire the right person before you're married to that person and everything goes wrong?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Hiring is like speed dating. Once you sign the offer letter, you are committed.

HR Red Flags And Interview Tests

SPEAKER_01 12:42

So, how do you spot character before you're living with it? There's a thing called a receptionist test. And I've seen this work myself. And it was advice that I had taken back when I was unemployed for a short period of time to stop handing in your resume online, physically walk in, hand your resume to the receptionist. Why? Well, the HR department sometimes will ask, well, what do you think of the individual since you met them? And sometimes how you treat the receptionist in the meeting, whenever they come in and say, Would you like a glass of water? Do you want to make a copy of your resume? How you respond to that individual offering you that kind of services is important. And they're making a judgment because that's a test. Then there's a mistake probe. When you're hiring someone and they say, I messed up, that means something. But when they say the system failed me, it also says something about taking ownership of something when it goes wrong. The last part I think is interesting too, that I want to talk about is legacy. When you hire someone, it's not the history of the individual's job performances or length of job, but what they've done to try to create a legacy of helping others. Character never shows up on the application tracking system, but it shows up every day in the break room.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

So, what does HR actually watch for? Beyond character and personality, HR and hiring managers both look for red flags in things like professional hygiene and cognitive consistency, how you're thinking, the order that you're thinking. They are essentially trying to determine if your work self is as stable and reliable as your resume claims to be. So here are the key non-character indicators they track. The why now, motivation and logic. Managers look for a logical narrative in your career path. So here's a red flag: the jumping bean. If you've had four jobs in three years and every department was not a good fit, or my boss was mean, it probably suggests you are the common denominator in all of that friction. So what they want to hear is a story of proactive moves moving toward a goal rather than reactive escapes running away from a problem. The next one's called the execution proof specificity. They're looking for the difference between someone who has watched the work being done and somebody who actually got their hands dirty and did the work. The red flag here is the vague cloud, using too many we statements or high-level buzzwords without being able to explain the exact steps taken to solve a problem. Is this individual at least two or three questions deep? I don't know. Then there's the test. They will drill down by asking follow-up questions like exactly what software did you use for that? Or what was the first thing you did when you realized the deadline was impossible? Essentially, behavioral interview questions, what did you do?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

And then there's the business acumen or having the ability to understand the big picture. Even for mid-level roles, people who are interviewing candidates want to know if you understand how the company actually makes money. The red flag, the solo worker, someone who knows their task perfectly, but has no idea how it impacts the customer or the bottom line. Ask questions like, who are your biggest competitors right now? And just to see if you've done your homework.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

So let's talk about stability and liability. Good old-fashioned risk assessment. HR is trained to protect the company from future headaches. So, for instance, social media hygiene. Many will do a soft search just to see if your public persona aligns with the company's brand. And then there's the bad mouth rule. Even if your previous boss was a crisis manager from our archetypes, complaining about them in an interview signals that you might be a high maintenance or litigious employee. And then finally the adapter, a pivot factor. In a fast-changing market, how you learn is more important than just what you know. And here's the red flag: the rigidity. If you answer every question with, well, at my last job, we always did it this way. It probably suggests that you may struggle with new systems or cultural shifts.

Pop Culture Leadership Examples

Resources And Listener Outreach

SPEAKER_01 17:09

And it kind of highlights all the points that we're bringing up is the rational intelligence, the difference between being nice and knowing how to navigate the hierarchy. The test is how you handle challenging or stressful questions. Do you get defensive? Do you shut down? Or do you stay professional and composed? When you think about it, TV and movies have brought up wonderful examples of what we're discussing. And hopefully these references mean something to you. One of my favorite is Michael Scott character in The Office, played by Stephen Corell. And he's a wonderful example of a crisis manager and a philosopher, which is the conformist and the self-protective levels. And then there are managers like Ted Lasso from the TV series that they had on Apple, played by Jason Sadekis. And he is a wonderful example of a responsible level manager. What's interesting about this program is that it is about leadership. It's about Ted Lasso and how he manages a soccer team. And it's the characters and the personalities and not their skill levels. He was a coach for football, trying to coach a soccer team. And he had no knowledge of the game, but he knew how to deal with people. Outside of the foul language on it, I would strongly recommend watching the Ted Lasso program. It's funny and it's serious and reflects the size of leadership that are both good and bad everywhere. And I like the comedy side of it. Hopefully, this information from this episode is helpful. And you can see these characters in your workplace. And when you're hiring, ask those character questions, not just those skill questions. So if you like what you've heard, I've written a book called Building Your Leadership Toolbox, and we talk about tools like this. And it's available on Amazon and Barnes Noble and other sites. The podcast is what you've been listening to. Thank you so much. It's also available on Apple, Google, and Spotify. A lot of what we talk about is from Dr. Durst and his MBR program. If you'd like to know more about Dr. Durst, you can find out on SuccessGrowthAcademy.com. And if you'd like to contact us, please send me a line. It's Wando75 periodjw at gmail.com. And the music has been brought to you by my grandson. So we want to hear from you. Drop me a line. Tell me what's going on, what you like, and what you would like to hear about. It has always helped us to create content. Thanks, Greg. This was fun.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Thanks, John. As always. Next time.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah.