Looks Good on Paper

Hosted by Anita Chauhan

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Jun 2026

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Looks Good on Paper flips hiring on its head. Hosted by Andrew Wood and Anita Chauhan, we dive into why CVs and "perfect fits" are overrated. Through fun, insightful conversations with industry experts, we explore how skills, potential, and real experience should be the focus of hiring... not what looks good on paper. Quick, candid, and packed with actionable insights, we’re here to rewrite the rules of hiring, one episode at a time.

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June 9, 2026Episode 918 min

Stop Hiring Three Juniors When You Need One Senior.

Startups love being scrappy. They love the hustle. And they keep making the same mistake with that energy: hiring three or four junior people when they should have hired one senior person. Not because junior talent isn't valuable but because without someone who has the reps, the strategy side falls apart and the execution side has nobody steering it.Jen Paxton is VP of People and Talent at Roofr, where she took the company from around 125 to 260 people. Roofr is her ninth startup. Before that, she co-founded Jamyr (acquired by Recruitics) and built people functions at Smile.io, Privy, LevelUp (acquired by GrubHub), TrueMotion, and more across the Boston tech ecosystem. She holds a master's in vocal performance from Boston Conservatory at Berklee. In this episode, she breaks down the seniority mistake startups keep making, the pedigree bias that drives comp decisions, a big-company horror story involving managers doing their own payroll onboarding, why her team still reviews every resume by hand, and the five-word question Boston TA leaders are using to catch ghost candidates.GUEST Jen Paxton, VP of People and Talent, Roofr https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenpaxton/YOUR HOST Anita Chauhan, Host, Looks Good on Paper https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/LISTEN & FOLLOWApple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/looks-good-on-paper/id1625835562All episodes → https://looksgoodonpaper.buzzsprout.comWATCH ON YOUTUBE→ https://youtu.be/KEKYr6m32Yg POWERED BY WILLOHire humans, not resumes.https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paperCONNECT WITH USLinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/10170893If this episode made you think, share it with one person who hires people.Startups frequently under-hire on seniority, bringing in multiple junior employees to fill a role that requires senior-level judgment and strategic capacity. The cost extends beyond salary: without experienced leadership, teams lack the ability to balance execution and strategy, context switching overwhelms less experienced hires, and retention suffers when people are placed in roles they are not yet equipped to succeed in. Companies continue to overpay for candidates from well-known brands while undervaluing proven capability from lesser-known organizations. As AI-generated applications flood hiring pipelines, talent acquisition teams face a verification crisis, with structured verification methods, referral networks, and manual review processes emerging as critical defenses against a system producing more noise than signal.Show ResourcesWillo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any timeCV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessmentsAnita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host

June 3, 2026Episode 818 min

Your Best Hire Won't Look Good on Paper

"Culture fit" sounds like a good thing until you look at what it actually filters for. People who look like you. People who sound like you. People who make you comfortable. It's not a hiring strategy. It's a survival instinct dressed up as one.Daen Fox has led talent acquisition across BT, Bupa, Nuffield Health, RICS, Saint-Gobain, and The Midcounties Co-operative. He's worked in insurance, retail, construction, healthcare, and leisure. He holds a master's in psychotherapy and now runs The Fox Consulting Collective, offering fractional TA leadership, employer brand advisory, and talent strategy consulting. In this episode, he breaks down why "culture fit" is the most persistent bias in hiring, what happened when he removed CVs from assessment centers and let managers evaluate candidates first, how he built a TA team by hiring from marketing and finance instead of recruiting from recruiting, why employer brand is a five-to-ten year investment that most companies still refuse to make, and why AI fluency is the signal he'd be screening for right now.GUEST Daen Fox, Freelance Talent Acquisition Leader, The Fox Consulting Collective https://www.linkedin.com/in/daenjafox/YOUR HOST Anita Chauhan, Host, Looks Good on Paper https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/LISTEN & FOLLOWApple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/looks-good-on-paper/id1625835562All episodes → https://looksgoodonpaper.buzzsprout.comWATCH ON YOUTUBE→ https://youtu.be/WR2j0lc4dG8 POWERED BY WILLOHire humans, not resumes.https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paperCONNECT WITH USLinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/10170893If this episode made you think, share it with one person who hires people. And subscribe — we're rewriting the rules of hiring, one episode at a time.If this episode made you think, share it with one person who hires people."Culture fit" remains one of the most common and least examined phrases in hiring. Research shows that unstructured evaluations of cultural fit consistently encode unconscious bias, filtering for familiarity rather than capability. Organizations using structured, evidence-based hiring processes hire employees who perform better, stay longer, and are more demographically diverse. Assessment methods that remove resume review from the initial evaluation stage consistently surface candidates that hiring managers would not have selected from a CV alone. As AI reduces the signal value of the written resume, companies that invest in employer brand, structured assessment, and skills-based evaluation are building the infrastructure that will determine their ability to attract and retain talent over the next decade.Show ResourcesWillo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any timeCV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessmentsAnita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host

May 20, 2026Episode 720 min

Why Shopify Asks Every Candidate to Tell Their Life Story

Hiring managers keep passing on their best candidates because they haven't figured out what great looks like before the first interview starts. The strongest batch comes in early, gets overlooked, and by the time the team circles back, those people are gone. Months of searching for a needle in a haystack that was sitting on the desk the whole time.The companies that hire well right now are the ones doing the calibration work before the search opens, and refusing to use company logos as a proxy for capability.Simran Sidhu leads talent acquisition for Shopify's commercial teams. Before Shopify, she built hiring and people functions from the ground up at startups and scale-ups across Toronto, including Relay, Pocket HR, and Out of Office HR. In this episode, she breaks down the most costly hiring mistake she sees repeated everywhere, the hidden bias baked into how companies source candidates, and the interview format Shopify uses with every single hire, from intern to executive: the Life Story.What you'll learn:→ Why slow decision-making is the most expensive hiring mistake, and the calibration fix→ How big-tech and consultancy backgrounds became a bias disguised as quality→ What Shopify's Life Story interview actually evaluates (taste, judgment, agency)→ Why AI is making every resume and every set of interview notes look the same→ The one-line human override Simran requires on every candidate debriefGUESTSimran Sidhu, Talent Acquisition, Commercial, ShopifyLinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/simranasidhu/HOSTAnita Chauhan, Head of Brand and Thought Leadership at Willo, Founder at InGoodCo. https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/In this episode:TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Intro 02:39 The biggest hiring mistake companies make 08:16 Hidden hiring bias in big tech recruiting 13:16 Shopify’s Life Story Interview 18:58 AI-generated resumes and interviews 21:59 How Shopify approaches AI usage in hiring 23:27 The problem with AI-written interview notesLISTEN & FOLLOWApple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/looks-good-on-paper/id1625835562All episodes → https://looksgoodonpaper.buzzsprout.comWATCH ON YOUTUBE→ https://youtu.be/gm_30sNXZ8oPOWERED BY WILLOHire humans, not resumes.https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paperCONNECT WITH USLinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/10170893If this episode made you think, share it with one person who hires people. And subscribe — we're rewriting the rules of hiring, one episode at a time.The most common reason companies lose their strongest candidates is not compensation or competition. It is indecision. Hiring managers who have not calibrated their evaluation criteria before interviewing pass on strong early candidates, extend the search, and recognize the original batch was the strongest only after those candidates have moved on. This pattern compounds with employer brand damage: roles that stay posted for months signal dysfunction to the market. Companies like Shopify have restructured their interview process around a Life Story conversation that evaluates judgment, self-awareness, and agency rather than credentials, titles, or company logos. As AI-generated resumes and AI-summarized interview notes become ubiquitous, the ability to assess a candidate's reasoning and decision-making history, not their polished output, is emerging as the primary differentiator in talent acquisition.Show ResourcesWillo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any timeCV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessmentsAnita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host

May 13, 2026Episode 622 min

She scaled to 1,500 people and wants to BURN the hiring process down

Half of all hires do not work out. Jenny Do Forno, CPO at TouchBistro, explains why the hiring process is measuring the wrong things and what to do instead.Jenny has spent nearly 25 years building and scaling teams from zero to 1,500 people across startups, scale-ups, and venture-backed companies. She has assessed and supported over 90 companies on how they hire, grow, and operate through her work at OMERS Ventures and the Schulich Venture Academy.In this conversation, Jenny names the three problems she still sees at every level: interviews that reward polish over substance, a persistent bias against career breaks, and a pedigree obsession that confuses where someone worked with what they can actually do.You will learn how to redesign references for real insight, why career break bias is one of the most common hidden filters in hiring, what happens when companies hire for logos instead of capability, and why Jenny wants to pull the entire process out and rebuild it from scratch.GUEST:Jenny Do Forno, Chief People Officer at TouchBistro https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennydoforno/HOSTAnita Chauhan, Head of Brand and Thought Leadership at Willo, Founder at InGoodCo. https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/LISTEN & FOLLOWYoutube: https://youtu.be/qmTSMJHjxhASpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dbfz6y0tMq3crViHQD66HApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/looks-good-on-paper/id1625835562POWERED BY WILLO https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paperCONNECT WITH US https://www.willo.video https://www.linkedin.com/company/10170893/Share this episode with a recruiter or hiring manager who needs to hear it. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.Looks Good on Paper is a hiring podcast that explores the gap between how confident companies think they are in their hiring process and how confident they should actually be. Host Anita Chauhan talks to talent leaders, recruiters, and workforce strategists about the assumptions, biases, and blind spots that shape how companies find, assess, and keep talent. Season 3 is The Confidence Gap: what do you actually trust in your hiring process?Hiring processes that rely on 45-minute interviews are measuring presentation skills, not job performance. Companies that restructure their process around deep references, work-based assessments, and targeted capability questions consistently close the gap between interview confidence and on-the-job results. Career break bias remains one of the least discussed but most common hidden filters in hiring, penalizing candidates for caregiving, burnout recovery, and personal development without evidence that breaks predict lower performance.Show ResourcesWillo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any timeCV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessmentsAnita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host

May 5, 2026Episode 520 min

A Candidate on My Call Was Impersonating a Dead Person

Deepfakes in hiring interviews are real. A recruiter at Xero shares the story of a candidate who impersonated a deceased person on a video call, and explains how his team catches fake profiles, eliminates culture fit bias, and reviews every single applicant without using AI to screen anyone out.Nit Karuna is a Principal AI/ML Recruiter at Xero with over a decade of experience building technical teams across Canada, the US, UK, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand. He leads recruitment for engineering, product, and data roles, including VPs of product and engineering, principal ML leaders, and applied scientists.In this episode, Nit breaks down the three confidence problems he sees in hiring right now: the pedigree trap (assuming someone from Google or Meta will automatically level up your team), culture fit interviews that function as vibe checks instead of structured assessments, and the growing wave of deepfakes and identity fraud that is forcing companies to rethink how they verify candidates.What you'll learn → Why hiring from big-brand companies backfires more often than recruiters admit → How culture fit rounds become bias traps when there are no structured criteria → What Xero does in intake calls to map team gaps and hold managers accountable → How deepfakes and fake profiles are showing up in live hiring interviews in 2026 → Why Nit personally reviews every applicant and refuses to let AI screen candidates out → What a hiring process without CVs could look like for engineering and AI roles → How to spot red flags on video calls (camera off, mismatched audio, off-screen typing)GUEST Nit Karuna, Principal AI/ML Recruiter at Xero https://www.linkedin.com/in/nitharsen/YOUR HOST Anita Chauhan, Founder of InGoodCo. https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/LISTEN & FOLLOW Youtube: https://youtu.be/qmTSMJHjxhA Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dbfz6y0tMq3crViHQD66HApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/looks-good-on-paper/id1625835562POWERED BY WILLO https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paperCONNECT WITH US https://www.willo.video https://www.linkedin.com/company/10170893/Share this episode with a recruiter or hiring manager who needs to hear it. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.Looks Good on Paper is a hiring podcast that explores the gap between how confident companies think they are in their hiring process and how confident they should actually be. Host Anita Chauhan talks to talent leaders, recruiters, and workforce strategists about the assumptions, biases, and blind spots that shape how companies find, assess, and keep talent. Season 3 is The Confidence Gap: what do you actually trust in your hiring process?Show ResourcesWillo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any timeCV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessmentsAnita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host

April 29, 2026Episode 423 min

Reward the Skill, Not the Performance

Most hiring decisions get made on a feeling. A hiring manager comes out of an interview, says "I think this one is a better fit," and the team moves forward. Anu Joshi has spent 17 years inside talent functions watching that pattern play out, and she has a problem with it. Interviews are high-pressure performance environments. The candidates who do well are often the ones who can read the room and tell you what you want to hear. The ones who freeze are not necessarily worse at the job. They are worse at the interview. Those are different things, and most teams are confusing them. Anu is currently Director of Talent at FutureSight, where she leads executive and leadership hiring for early-stage B2B AI companies. In this episode she walks through the biggest hiring mistakes she sees teams keep making, the bias she would eliminate first if she could pick only one, and what hiring actually looks like when you decenter the CV. She also gets specific about a recent founding engineer search where the team replaced the front of the funnel with a work sample and a short video walkthrough, and the candidate they hired told them the process felt like a real conversation about real work instead of a performance.What you'll learn:→ Why making hiring decisions on gut feeling out of an interview is the biggest mistake companies keep making→ How bias against non-linear career trajectories quietly costs companies their best candidates→ What it actually looks like to decenter the CV in a real founding engineer search→ Why AI in hiring is not about losing jobs but about roles getting redefined, and what talent leaders need to do about itGUESTAnu Joshi, Director of Talent at FutureSight — LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anu-joshi-sphri%E2%84%A2-46988a12/YOUR HOSTAnita Chauhan — LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/LISTEN & FOLLOWSpotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/0dbfz6y0tMq3crViHQD66HApple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/looks-good-on-paper/id1625835562All episodes → https://looksgoodonpaper.buzzsprout.com/POWERED BY WILLOHire humans, not resumes → https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paperLinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/10170893/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 person who performs best in an interview is not always the person who performs best in the job. Most hiring teams are still rewarding interview performance instead of skill, making decisions based on gut feeling rather than structured competency frameworks built from the actual gap they're trying to fill. Bias against non-linear career trajectories, including shorter tenures and career breaks for caregiving or burnout, is one of the most common hidden biases in modern hiring and is quietly costing companies their best candidates. Decentering the CV in favour of work samples and short async video walkthroughs is emerging as a more reliable signal of fit than resume review, particularly in early-stage and venture studio hiring where the gap between credential and capability is widest.Show ResourcesWillo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any timeCV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessmentsAnita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host

April 21, 2026Episode 323 min

"He Interviewed Well. That Was the Problem."

The person who interviews the best is not always the person who performs the best. In fact, sometimes they're the worst hire you'll make. Hamza Khan knows this firsthand. His own company, SkillsCamp, a soft skills training company, fell into the exact trap he teaches others to avoid: they hired someone who interviewed brilliantly and failed in the role. The wake-up call was brutal. If this can happen at a company whose entire business is power skills, it can happen anywhere.Hamza is a bestselling author, leadership researcher, and keynote speaker whose TEDx talk "Stop Managing, Start Leading" has been viewed millions of times. He's also the co-founder of SkillsCamp and Sage.In this episode, Hamza introduces the dark triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) as the hidden bias most companies have no way to screen for, explains why hope has become the number one thing employees need from leaders, and makes the case for distributed hiring decisions and real reference checks.What you'll learn: → Why hiring for technical skills while ignoring soft skills is the biggest mistake companies keep making → How the dark triad presents as positive traits in interviews (confidence, strategic thinking, charisma) → What a real reference check looks like versus the version most companies skip → How AI is creating fabricated personas that pass the interview but fail in the roleGUEST Hamza Khan — LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/khanhamza/YOUR HOST Anita Chauhan — LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/LISTEN & FOLLOW Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/0dbfz6y0tMq3crViHQD66H Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/looks-good-on-paper/id1625835562 All episodes → https://looksgoodonpaper.buzzsprout.com/WATCH ON YOUTUBE - https://youtu.be/yGj5uLLcA8gPOWERED BY WILLO Hire humans, not resumes → https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paperCONNECT WITH US LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/10170893/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 person who interviews the best is not always the best hire. Companies continue to over-index on technical skills while ignoring the relational and leadership skills that actually predict performance, retention, and team health. The dark triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) presents as positive traits in interview settings: confidence, strategic thinking, and charisma. Without structured assessment for soft skills, communication, and collaboration, even companies that specialize in leadership development can hire the wrong person. Hope has overtaken trust, stability, and compassion as the number one thing employees need from their leaders.Show ResourcesWillo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any timeCV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessmentsAnita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host

April 15, 2026Episode 222 min

The Skills-Based Economy Arrived Five Years Ago

The skills-based economy arrived five years ago. Hiring still hasn't caught up. Most companies understand the concept of hiring for skills over job titles, but they hit a wall when it comes to translating that into an actual hiring process. The result: job postings still screen for titles, years of experience, and credentials that don't predict whether someone can do the work.Susan Sutherland has spent her career at the intersection of brand and growth, with a particular edge in employer brand. At Intact, one of Canada's largest insurers, she led enterprise employer brand strategy end to end. Now she works with startups. And her perspective is sharp: she's a marketer who fell into employer branding, meaning she sees the hiring process the way a customer would see a broken sales funnel.In this episode, Susan makes the case for portfolios over resumes, explains why years of experience cuts both ways as a filter, and calls out the internal mobility policies that quietly drive top talent out the door.What you'll learn: → Why the skills-based hiring mindset stalls at the point of actual screening → How years of experience bias works against candidates in both directions → Why internal mobility policies with time-in-role minimums lose top talent → The case for portfolios as the replacement for resume bullet points GUEST Susan Sutherland — Employer Brand & Growth Marketing StrategistLinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-sutherland/YOUR HOST Anita Chauhan — Fractional CMO & Host, Looks Good on Paper LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/LISTEN & FOLLOW Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/looks-good-on-paper/id1625835562 All episodes → https://looksgoodonpaper.buzzsprout.com/WATCH ON YOUTUBE https://youtu.be/ZU78NbLXQe0POWERED BY WILLO Hire humans, not resumes → https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paperCONNECT WITH US LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/waboratories/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 skills-based economy arrived five years ago, but most hiring processes haven't caught up. Companies understand the concept of hiring for skills over job titles, but default to screening for credentials, years of experience, and pattern-matched career paths. Years of experience bias cuts both ways: overqualified candidates get screened out for being "too senior," while candidates with fewer years but faster learning environments get dismissed for lacking tenure. Portfolios that show real work are emerging as a stronger signal than resume bullet points in an era where AI can generate a flawless CV in seconds.Show ResourcesWillo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any timeCV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessmentsAnita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host

April 8, 2026Episode 118 min

Learning Velocity Is the New Superpower

Companies keep saying they've moved past credential-based hiring. They haven't. Most are still filtering for where someone worked, where they went to school, and how many years they've held a similar title. The data says that's not the signal that predicts performance. What does? How someone thinks, learns, and collaborates inside a team.Sachi Kittur calls it the credential trap. And after 20+ years inside organizations during some of their most turbulent moments, she's seen how deep it goes. Companies that say they value diversity are still optimizing for comfort and familiarity. Leaders who claim to hire for potential are actually hiring for pattern recognition. And the result is a confidence in hiring that's borrowed, not earned.In this episode, Sachi breaks down why learning velocity is replacing adaptability as the most important skill signal, why removing the CV forces a better conversation, and why the biggest business risk she sees right now isn't technology. It's the loss of human connectivity.What you'll learn: → Why the credential trap persists at every level, including C-suite → How pattern recognition bias disguises itself as hiring strategy → What "learning velocity" means and why it matters more than experience → How to replace the CV with structured, stage-appropriate conversations → Why human connectivity is the biggest business risk companies are ignoringHOSTAnita Chauhan — Host, Looks Good on PaperLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/GUESTSachi Kittur — Future Work Advisor, VP of Human Experience & Innovation at HRPALinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachikittur/0:00 — Intro0:16 — Meet Sachi Kittur1:20 — How Sachi got here: keeping the humanitarian ethos alive in HR2:26 — Q1: The biggest hiring mistake companies keep making3:04 — The credential trap5:48 — Q2: Hidden bias companies unknowingly have6:04 — Pattern recognition bias: when comfort disguises itself as strategy7:59 — Microsoft's approach to trust and guardrails in hiring8:41 — Q3: What happens if you remove the CV10:19 — Learning velocity: the new superpower skill11:18 — 90% of conflict resolution traces back to one thing12:20 — How growth-stage companies should replace the CV13:51 — Wildcard: How to increase hiring confidence over the next year15:24 — Pick up the phone: the case for old-school conversations15:56 — The biggest business risk: losing human connectivity17:02 — Wrap-upLISTEN & FOLLOWSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0dbfz6y0tMq3crViHQD66HApple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1625835562All episodes - https://looksgoodonpaper.buzzsprout.comWATCH ON YOUTUBE https://youtu.be/vWrVcMjH0o8POWERED BY WILLO Hire humans, not resumes - https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paperCONNECT WITH USLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/10170893If 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.Companies keep saying they've moved past credential-based hiring. The credential trap — filtering for school, company name, and years of experience over actual learning capability — is still the default in most organizations, even progressive ones. Pattern recognition bias means leaders claim to hire for diversity while consistently selecting candidates who mirror their last successful hire. Learning velocity, not adaptability, is emerging as the skill signal that best predicts performance in high-growth environments.Show ResourcesWillo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any timeCV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessmentsAnita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host

April 2, 2026Episode 197 min

The Hiring Bias Nobody Thinks They Have

Most companies believe they've moved past credential bias. They've rewritten their job descriptions, dropped degree requirements, maybe even adopted skills assessments. But when six hiring leaders were asked the same question independently, without hearing each other's answers, every single one pointed to the same blind spot: companies are still screening for where someone has worked instead of evaluating whether they can actually do the job.The language has shifted. The behavior hasn't. "We need someone who's operated at scale" still means "did you work at a company I've heard of." And the teams that recognize this pattern in their own process, the ones willing to strip away the shortcuts and sit with what's left, are the ones making better hires right now.This is a Season 2 supercut from Looks Good on Paper.Six voices, one question, and an answer that should make every hiring team uncomfortable.What you'll learn: - Why screening for recognizable company names is outsourcing your talent assessment to a third party - How one team removes company names, school names, and years of experience from every candidate presentation - The difference between hiring for cultural fit and hiring for cultural addition - Why the most progressive hiring leaders actively avoid big-company experience for certain roles - What happens when you force hiring managers to question their own screening defaultsGUESTS Mike Bettley — VP Talent, StackAdapt Gillian Emerson — Sr. Director Talent Acquisition, Toast Jeff Waldman — Founder, ScaleHR Sarah Sheikh — Chief of Staff, Loop Financial Julia Arpag — Founder & CEO, Aligned Recruitment Jim Berrisford — VP Partnerships, WilloYOUR HOST Anita Chauhan — Host, Looks Good on Paper LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/LISTEN & FOLLOW Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0dbfz6y0tMq3crViHQD66H Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1625835562 All episodes - https://looksgoodonpaper.buzzsprout.comWATCH ON YOUTUBE - https://youtu.be/34sf1c3bKUcPOWERED BY WILLO Hire humans, not resumes - https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paperCONNECT WITH US LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/10170893If 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.When companies use recognizable employer names as a shortcut for evaluating candidate quality, they are outsourcing their talent assessment to another organization's hiring standards rather than evaluating capability directly. Skills-based approaches that remove company names, school names, and credential signals from candidate evaluation consistently surface stronger matches by forcing hiring teams to assess problem-solving ability, adaptability, and role-specific competence on their own terms. The gap between how confident companies are in their hiring process and how confident they should be is one of the most underexamined problems in modern talent acquisition.Show ResourcesWillo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any timeCV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessmentsAnita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host