The Question That Changed How I Hire
It was April 2025. I was thirty minutes into a call with a field seller who had delivered 157%, then 125%, and was running at over 100% year-to-date in a role she had quietly outgrown. A teammate was moving to a new org, I had a backfill coming, and her name had come up through someone I trusted.
She was not looking to leave. That was the first thing I noticed. She was not frustrated, not burned out, not quietly plotting her exit. She was methodical. She knew what she wanted next, and she had waited until the right thing was available before making a move.
About halfway through the call, I asked her something I now ask every candidate: "Are you moving toward something, or away from something?"
She thought about it for a moment. Then she said she missed the variety. She had spent years in automotive and manufacturing — slow, multi-year cycles where innovation moved in quarters, not weeks. She wanted accounts where things moved faster. She wanted cross-industry exposure again. She wanted to feel the energy of a territory where the possibilities hadn't been mapped yet.
That was the answer I was looking for.
What the Wrong Answer Sounds Like
In my first year leading a team, I was still learning to hear the difference. I had candidates with impressive track records who couldn't tell me what they were running toward — only what they were running from. A difficult manager. A territory that had gone stale. A comp structure that felt unfair. Those things are real. I don't dismiss them. But they are not a destination.
The candidates who struggled to articulate what they wanted next were the ones who required the most management once they arrived. Not because they weren't talented. But because they had chosen the role by subtraction — eliminating where they didn't want to be — rather than by conviction. There's a difference between someone who picks your team because they want to be here and someone who picks your team because they needed to go somewhere.
I started to see it in the loop feedback. When the debrief was split — one interviewer inclined, another not — the gap was almost always there. The interviewer, who was inclined, had heard the candidate describe what they wanted to build. The one who was not inclined had heard someone describe what they were tired of.
Uncertainty in the debrief is information. If experienced interviewers can't reach conviction, that absence is an answer.
The Candidates Who Find You
The strongest hires I made didn't come through job postings. They came through people I had invested in over the years — peers, partners, former colleagues who knew what I was building and who knew who would thrive in it.
A peer sales leader sent me a senior seller who had closed a $100 million deal and was running at 108% of quota across 156 accounts. She wasn't looking for a lifeline. She was looking for fewer, larger accounts where she could go deeper. A colleague told me about a senior inside sales rep he had worked with for two years — 'L6 and amazing' — who had reached out on his own because he knew what kind of team I was building. A partner sales manager who had delivered 200% in a solo pilot and three straight years of quota attainment called me because he wanted to get back in front of customers. Direct. Hands-on. Accountable.
None of them needed a job. All of them wanted this one.
That is the signal. When someone with options chooses your team, it means something about both of you. They have done enough due diligence to know what they are walking into. And you have built something worth walking into.
The Hardest Calls
Not every hire is clean. Some of the hardest moments I faced were split loops where the data was genuinely mixed — a candidate with real strengths and real gaps, and the question wasn't whether they were good but whether they were right for this specific territory, this specific moment in the team's build.
What I learned is that the hiring process is not just about finding someone who can do the job. It's about finding someone who wants to do this job, on this team, at this stage of their career. Those are different filters. The first gets you a competent hire. The second gets you a committed one.
I would rather reopen a requisition than close it with doubt.
Toward Something
When that April call wrapped up, I told her I'd reach out as soon as the requisition was approved. She said she'd be ready. She wasn't impatient. She wasn't shopping. She was focused.
That focus is what I look for now in every conversation I have with a candidate. Not just the track record — though the track record matters. Not just the skills — though the skills have to be there. What I'm listening for is the answer to one question: where are you going, and why is this the way to get there?
The candidates who can answer that clearly, with specificity and without bitterness, are the ones who show up on day one knowing why they're there. They integrate faster. They own their territories with more conviction. They don't need to be convinced every quarter that they made the right choice.
I close every candidate conversation the same way now. Not with a pitch about the team or the opportunity. With a question.
Where are you going?
The answer tells me everything I need to know.