What Hiring Managers Actually Look For (Hint: It's Not Your GPA)

I've Been on the Other Side of the Table

Between 2017 and 2024, I interviewed somewhere around 200 candidates for engineering and product roles across three different companies — a Series B startup, a mid-size SaaS company, and a division of a Fortune 500. I've made plenty of hiring mistakes. I've also gotten lucky a few times and hired people who turned out to be absolute rockstars.

Here's what I've learned: the things candidates obsess over (GPA, prestigious company names on their resume, the perfect answer to "what's your greatest weakness") barely register in actual hiring decisions. The things that DO matter are harder to fake and easier to spot than most people realize.

Problem-Solving Ability Over Credentials

I stopped asking for GPAs around 2019. You know how many times a candidate's GPA predicted their job performance? Zero. Literally zero correlation in my experience.

What I care about: can you break down a problem you haven't seen before? I'm not talking about textbook problems with known solutions. I mean the messy, ambiguous, "we're not even sure this is the right problem to solve" situations that make up 80% of real work.

The best candidates I've hired thought out loud. They asked clarifying questions. They said "I don't know, but here's how I'd figure it out." One person — who became one of the best engineers I've ever worked with — straight up said "I've never dealt with this exact scenario, but let me walk you through my thinking." She didn't have the answer. She had something better: a reliable process for finding answers.

Credentials tell me what you've been exposed to. Problem-solving tells me what you'll do when you hit something new. I'll take the second one every time.

Communication Skills (Seriously, This Is Huge)

I've passed on technically brilliant candidates because they couldn't explain their work to non-technical stakeholders. That might sound harsh, but here's the reality: in most roles, you spend maybe 30% of your time doing the technical work and 70% communicating about it. Writing docs, presenting to leadership, explaining trade-offs to product managers, giving feedback in code reviews.

The candidates who stand out can adjust their communication style depending on the audience. They don't dump jargon on someone who doesn't need it. They don't oversimplify when talking to peers. They use examples and analogies. They're concise.

One of my favorite interview moments: I asked a backend engineer to explain their system design to me as if I were a non-technical CEO. She paused for five seconds, then said: "Think of it like a postal sorting facility. Letters come in, get sorted by zip code into different bins, and each bin has its own delivery truck. Our system does the same thing with data requests." Perfect. Clear, memorable, accurate enough. I hired her on the spot.

Cultural Add, Not Cultural Fit

The phrase "cultural fit" has done a lot of damage. For years, it was code for "hire people who look and think like us," which is how you end up with teams of 12 people with identical backgrounds and identical blind spots.

I look for cultural add — someone who shares our values (integrity, ownership, collaboration) but brings a different perspective. Different industry experience. Different life path. Different way of approaching problems. That's where the magic happens.

My best hire ever was a career-changer — a former high school teacher who learned to code in her 30s. She brought something no one else on the team had: the ability to explain complex concepts simply, patience with ambiguity, and a fundamentally different way of thinking about user experience because she'd spent a decade thinking about how people learn. She didn't "fit" our existing culture. She made it better.

Self-Awareness Matters More Than You Think

When I ask "what are you working on improving?" and someone says "honestly, nothing — I'm pretty solid across the board," that's a red flag. Not because I expect people to be broken, but because self-awareness is the foundation of growth.

The best answer I've heard: "I tend to go deep into implementation details too quickly. I've gotten feedback that I should spend more time aligning with stakeholders on the 'why' before jumping to the 'how.' I've been working on it by scheduling 15-minute alignment calls before starting any new project." Specific. Honest. Shows active effort to improve. That's someone I want on my team.

People who can't articulate their weaknesses usually can't take feedback either. And people who can't take feedback are the most expensive hires you'll ever make.

Curiosity and Learning Ability

Technology changes. Processes change. Markets change. The half-life of any specific technical skill is maybe 3-5 years. So I'm much less interested in what you know today and much more interested in how quickly you can learn what you'll need tomorrow.

I look for signals: Do you ask thoughtful questions during the interview? Have you taught yourself anything outside of work recently? Can you talk about a time you had to learn something completely unfamiliar under time pressure? Do you read broadly or just within your domain?

One candidate told me about spending three weekends learning Rust just because she was curious about memory safety. She wasn't applying for a Rust role. She just wanted to understand a different paradigm. That curiosity — that hunger to understand how things work — is something you can't train into someone.

The Airport Test

This one's going to sound superficial, but hear me out. Many hiring managers use some version of the "airport test": if I were stuck at an airport with this person for six hours due to a flight delay, would I be okay with that?

It's not about being entertaining or charming. It's about: are you someone who can hold a real conversation? Are you self-aware enough to read social cues? Can you be disagreeable without being disagreeable about it? Do you have interests and opinions outside of work?

The worst interviews I've conducted are with people who feel like they're performing a role rather than having a conversation. I can see the rehearsed answers. I can feel the calculation behind every response. Just be a person. Have opinions. Disagree with me if you think I'm wrong — I'll respect you more for it.

Red Flags That Disqualify Fast

Some things will kill your candidacy in the first 15 minutes, no matter how strong your resume is:

• Arrogance. Confidence is great. Saying "I was the only competent person on my team" is not confidence — it's a warning sign. If everyone around you is incompetent, maybe the common factor is you.
• Dishonesty. If I catch you exaggerating (and I usually can, because I'll ask follow-up questions that only make sense if you actually did the thing), you're done. I'd rather hear "I contributed to that project in a supporting role" than "I led the entire initiative" when you clearly didn't.
• No questions. Having zero questions for me tells me one of two things: you're not curious, or you don't care about this role specifically. Neither is good.
• Badmouthing former employers. Every company has problems. How you talk about those problems tells me a lot. "The leadership had different priorities than I did, and I realized it was time for a change" is fine. "My boss was an idiot" is not.
• Checking your phone. Yes, this has happened. More than once. Don't.

What This Means for Your Prep

Stop memorizing answers to "top 50 interview questions." Instead, spend that time on three things: practicing how you explain your experience (clearly and concisely), preparing thoughtful questions that show you've researched the company, and reflecting honestly on your strengths and growth areas.

If you want to practice in a way that builds real skill — not just rehearsed scripts — check out Craqly's AI interview copilot. It'll push you on exactly the kind of follow-up questions that separate the candidates who truly understand their work from the ones who memorized a good answer. That's the difference hiring managers notice.