How do I tell who'll actually succeed once I hire them?
You think the failure is in your judgment of people. It isn't. The failure is that you have no written standard for what ramping well looks like. So every hire becomes a referendum on your gut, and your gut is not as good as you think. Notice what you're actually doing: reading a resume, sitting through a few conversations, then asking that thin evidence to forecast a year of behavior. That is not a hiring problem. That is a measurement problem. You haven't decided, in advance, what you'll watch for once they're in the seat. The people who flame out rarely do it on day one. There are signs by week three, week six. But you only catch signs you've already decided matter. Right now you're watching generally, hoping instinct will flag trouble. Choose instead to watch specifically.
You cannot predict this from interviews. Stop trying. Instead, define what good performance looks like at day 30, 60, and 90 before you hire — then watch for those exact signs once they start. Prediction is guessing; observation with a standard is not.
What changes unlock by starting
- A written, reusable definition of what ramping well looks like at 30, 60, and 90 days
- A habit of checking new hires against specific benchmarks instead of general impressions
- Fewer decisions made on gut feeling alone, more made on observed behavior
- A growing personal record of early signs that actually predicted success or failure