• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

He worked 100-hour weeks to save a nearly bankrupt boat company. At 83, he’s just turned down $400 million for it—and gave it all to charity instead

2

Costco's $14 million email settlement: Who qualifies for an up-to $500 payment and how to claim before the Aug. 24 deadline

3

Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax was designed to hit the wealthy, but it’s sending most New Yorkers to their estate lawyers

1

He worked 100-hour weeks to save a nearly bankrupt boat company. At 83, he’s just turned down $400 million for it—and gave it all to charity instead

2

Costco's $14 million email settlement: Who qualifies for an up-to $500 payment and how to claim before the Aug. 24 deadline

3

Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax was designed to hit the wealthy, but it’s sending most New Yorkers to their estate lawyers
Commentary

3 Things Every Hiring Manager Wants to See in Your Resume

By
Eric Rea
Eric Rea
and
Bethany Cianciolo
Bethany Cianciolo
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Eric Rea
Eric Rea
and
Bethany Cianciolo
Bethany Cianciolo
Down Arrow Button Icon
June 20, 2017, 12:02 PM ET
Businesswoman waiting with legs crossed in lobby
Business team working in the officeCaiaimage/Agnieszka Wozniak Getty Images
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

The Entrepreneur Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in America’s startup scene contribute answers to timely questions about entrepreneurship and careers. Today’s answer to the question, “What are the top three things you look for on a resume?” is written by Eric Rea, CEO of Podium.

Over the last few years of running Podium, I’ve learned to look at hiring like playing poker. Each and every candidate has their “tells”—some good, some not so good. But the key is to find the most important tells that can help you consistently hire great people.

Some of the obvious tells are skills, experience, etc., which you should be able to identify without much thought. The more insightful tells are the ambiguous ones that will really let you get to know the candidate. If you can identify those, you will have a better chance of building a team of high-quality, dedicated people in each department.

Below are the top three things I look for in a candidate:

Grit
One major tell for me is whether or not the candidate has grit. In other words, have they tackled really tough projects? If they haven’t, they likely won’t excel within our organization. It’s not that our work environment is tough, but we need people who can come in and drive real change. We need people who can fight through the daily minutia and feel confident about the results they produce every single day. Boiling it down to one statement: We need people who can do hard things.

If you want to be an agile, fast-paced company, your employees need to have grit.

See also: 3 Things That Make a Really Great Resume

Dig into the bullet points of each job on their resume to understand what they had to go through to accomplish each and every listed item. If the employee is seasoned, they’ll list accomplishments for each of their previous roles. If they aren’t, they’ll list similar accomplishments for school or pre-professional jobs. Regardless, dig into those bullet points like it’s no one’s business. You’ll quickly learn if they have the grit you’re looking for.

Commitment
This is one tell that many people consider to be an obvious one, but I don’t think it is. There are so many factors that play into someone’s tenure at a given company. For example, someone could have been at a company for five years, but never changed positions for a number of reasons. On the flip side, someone could have been at a company for just one year, but became invaluable. Both of those situations certainly have explanations that could be good or bad.

The goal here is to understand how committed they really are. Were these situations that were controllable or uncontrollable? Was this candidate brought into the company, but was hindered in some way? Is this candidate constantly looking for the next best opportunity? Is this person difficult to work with?

The list could go on forever. But you really need to understand their tenures at previous companies to make an educated guess about whether or not they’ll be committed to your business, even when the times get tough. After all, turnover is expensive.

Walk through each previous job with the candidate to get a sense of what changes or departures were controllable, uncontrollable, or inevitable. Each explanation will generally align with the best interests of the employee, but that gives you a starting point when back-channeling to get feedback on the candidate. And again, just because they were there for five years doesn’t mean that they were committed. Dive in and go with your gut—it’s powerful, and has led me to some of my best hires.

Organization
For many positions you hire for, you need someone who is organized, has some level of attention to detail, and takes pride in their work. If you boil down a resume to its simplest form, you’ll realize that it’s actually their first test project where you can evaluate all of those things.

If a candidate hands over a resume that is disorganized or lacks focus, they probably aren’t the greatest fit for your business.

 

To clarify, the candidate doesn’t need to have the Picasso of resumes (from a design standpoint), or even write like a world-class journalist. They simply need have the ability to communicate their skillset, experience, and work history in a way that’s organized and consumable without glaring errors.

For me, this is one of the easiest ways to get a foundational sense for their organizational skills. This can be the difference between you constantly having to jump in to make changes and allowing for uninterrupted, continual shipment of projects.

After you have a candidate’s resume, request a few test projects. If you’re hiring an engineer, a quick project will give insight into their code. If it’s a salesperson, see what a prospecting email looks like.

Look for these three qualities in every candidate, and you’ll be on track to building your best team yet.

About the Authors
By Eric Rea
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
By Bethany Cianciolo
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Commentary

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • TikTok icon
  • YouTube icon

Latest in Commentary

Asia drives 60% of global growth, but the region’s CEOs can’t escape geopolitics. Here’s how they can stay competitive
Commentarygeopolitics
Asia drives 60% of global growth, but the region’s CEOs can’t escape geopolitics. Here’s how they can stay competitive
By Yasushi SasakiJuly 30, 2026
11 hours ago
byd
CommentaryChina
McKinsey auto leader: China’s auto industry is faster, cheaper and better. Here’s how the West can close the gap 
By Philipp KampshoffJuly 30, 2026
21 hours ago
f
CommentaryPandemic
Dr. Fauci, the Lockdown Czar, just won’t go away
By Steve H. HankeJuly 29, 2026
1 day ago
f
CommentaryMarkets
Dr. Fauci, the Age of Big Players in science and what his diary reveals about the disputed origins of Covid
By Steve H. Hanke and Roger KopplJuly 29, 2026
2 days ago
Nnamdi Iregbulem is a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners
CommentaryVenture Capital
Button-mashing never worked in StarCraft. Tokenmaxxing won’t work in AI
By Nnamdi IregbulemJuly 29, 2026
2 days ago
orla
Commentarybenefits
The Benefits Activation Gap: what claims data teaches us about employee engagement
By Orla NixonJuly 29, 2026
2 days ago

Most Popular

He worked 100-hour weeks to save a nearly bankrupt boat company. At 83, he’s just turned down $400 million for it—and gave it all to charity instead
Success
He worked 100-hour weeks to save a nearly bankrupt boat company. At 83, he’s just turned down $400 million for it—and gave it all to charity instead
By Preston ForeJuly 29, 2026
2 days ago
Costco's $14 million email settlement: Who qualifies for an up-to $500 payment and how to claim before the Aug. 24 deadline
Retail
Costco's $14 million email settlement: Who qualifies for an up-to $500 payment and how to claim before the Aug. 24 deadline
By Sydney LakeJuly 29, 2026
2 days ago
Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax was designed to hit the wealthy, but it’s sending most New Yorkers to their estate lawyers
Real Estate
Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax was designed to hit the wealthy, but it’s sending most New Yorkers to their estate lawyers
By Catherina GioinoJuly 30, 2026
1 day ago
Current price of oil as of July 30, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of July 30, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJuly 30, 2026
21 hours ago
'Am I paying for the vibes?' Gen Z says it hates capitalism, but their spending patterns show they just don't like being ripped off
Retail
'Am I paying for the vibes?' Gen Z says it hates capitalism, but their spending patterns show they just don't like being ripped off
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 30, 2026
21 hours ago
The millennial generation is split in 2: an older crowd with boomer-style comfort, a younger set going 'back to the early 1900s'
Real Estate
The millennial generation is split in 2: an older crowd with boomer-style comfort, a younger set going 'back to the early 1900s'
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 25, 2026
6 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.