The old way of hiring is collapsing.

We built decades of infrastructure on top of a flawed assumption: that a 30-minute conversation can predict someone’s long-term impact. It can’t. Yet, most companies still hire this way - asking rehearsed questions, taking guesses based on resumes, and hoping for a good outcome.

This is going to change fast.
Not slowly. Not incrementally.
Fast.

The next evolution of hiring is already underway.
It looks like this:

See them perform.
Feel them fit in.
Then hire.

Not the other way around.

Why Now?

Because the time has changed.

• Remote and async work became the norm
• Teams care more about velocity and less about pedigree
• AI has made it easy to fake resumes, cover letters, and even interviews
• Trust has become the core constraint in hiring

We’re entering a world where top performers are judged less by how they speak, and more by how they think and build. Not over a long period, but in just a few interactions - when those interactions are real.

The advantage will go to companies that understand this shift early.

Resumes Are Becoming Noise

Everyone has figured out how to look good on paper. And soon, everyone will have a flawless AI-crafted resume.

But great work? That still requires judgment, creativity, and real-time context awareness. You can’t fake that. Not at scale.

Hiring based on signals that can be easily manipulated is a race to the bottom.
Hiring based on how someone actually performs in context is a power law game.

Interviews Were a Hack

Interviews were a decent tool when we didn’t have better options. They were faster than apprenticeships, cheaper than trial periods, and easier to operationalize. But they were also riddled with false positives, false negatives, and bias.

The problem isn’t that interviews are broken.
The problem is they were a workaround for a lack of visibility.

That constraint is gone now.

Real Work is the New Signal

We now have the tools to simulate real collaboration, even for a few hours:

• Async projects
• Recorded product thinking
• Simulated team dynamics
• Lightweight problem-solving inside real systems

This isn’t speculative. It’s already happening in frontier teams. The most progressive hiring orgs are quietly running simulations, trial tasks, and collaboration exercises - then making fast, confident hiring decisions with near-zero churn.

They’re not waiting for permission.
They’re building for efficiency.

Culture Fit is Not Vibes

“Culture fit” used to mean: do they feel like us?

That’s outdated.

Culture fit today is:

• Can they adapt to our way of working?
• Do they understand context quickly?
• Can they collaborate with our speed and clarity?

These things are best observed through interaction, not discussion. You feel them when you work alongside someone. Even briefly.

You don’t need 90 days. You often need 90 minutes.

Don’t Confuse Work Samples with Work Simulation

One big mistake: thinking portfolios or GitHub links are enough.

They’re not.

Work samples show the output. But the best teams want to see the process - the decisions, the tradeoffs, the discussions, the learning curve.

That’s why simulation matters more than documentation.

Watching someone work on something new is a stronger signal than reviewing what they’ve already mastered.

The New Default Will Be “Perform First, Decide Later”

In the next few years, this will become the default model:

• You won’t get hired just by applying
• You’ll get invited to perform - briefly, in context
• The best-fit teams will see you think, build, adapt
• If it clicks, you’ll skip to the offer. No dance

It will feel fast. But it will also feel fair.

High-agency candidates will love it.
Low-agency ones will avoid it.
Both outcomes are good.

This Isn’t Speculative. It’s Inevitable.

Every system evolves toward more efficient information flow.
Interviews are slow, noisy, and biased.
Work simulations are fast, rich, and self-evident.

The same way products are now demoed, not pitched -
People will be hired by what they do, not what they say.

This shift isn’t about replacing interviews. It’s about transcending them.

Final Thought

Hiring is too important to leave to instinct.

The best founders and teams already know:
You can’t afford to hire blindly.
You have to see people work.
You have to feel the fit.
Then - and only then - you decide.

That’s the model.
That’s the future.
And the future always wins.