Why Hiring for Potential Keeps Going Wrong
“Potential” is one of the most common words used in hiring decisions.
It is also one of the least clearly defined.
Hiring managers talk about raw ability, growth mindset, and promise. Early career candidates are selected because they feel like they will scale. Fast growth roles are filled based on perceived upside rather than proven experience.
Yet many of these hires fail to deliver on that promise.
The issue is not that potential does not matter. It is that most organisations are guessing at it.
The problem with how we assess potential
In practice, potential is rarely assessed directly.
Instead, it is inferred from signals that feel familiar:
Academic pedigree
Brand name employers
Confidence and communication style
Similarity to previous high performers
These signals are easy to observe, but they are weak predictors of future growth.
Confidence, in particular, is often mistaken for capability. Candidates who communicate fluently are assumed to learn quickly or adapt well, even when there is little evidence to support that assumption.
As a result, organisations consistently miss high potential candidates who do not fit traditional success profiles.
Why experience is a poor shortcut
Experience tells you where someone has been, not how they will perform as a role evolves.
In fast growth environments, roles change quickly. New tools are introduced. Expectations shift. Complexity increases.
Candidates who succeed in these contexts are not always the most experienced. They are the ones who can learn, reason through unfamiliar problems, and adjust their approach as demands change.
When experience is treated as a proxy for potential, organisations bias decisions toward familiarity rather than adaptability.
The cost of getting potential wrong
Misjudging potential has real consequences.
When organisations hire based on assumed upside rather than evidence, they often see:
Early performance issues
Slower progression than expected
Development plans that do not materialise
Higher attrition in early career and growth roles
Potential hiring failures are rarely labelled as such. They are explained away as poor fit, lack of readiness, or unrealistic expectations.
In reality, the assessment was flawed from the start.
What assessing potential properly looks like
Potential is not a personality trait. It is contextual.
A candidate’s potential depends on:
The skills required in the role
The pace of change
The level of ambiguity
The support and constraints of the environment
Assessing potential properly means observing how candidates respond to new information, reason through unfamiliar situations, and translate understanding into action.
These behaviours can be measured. They just require intent and design.
From intuition to evidence
Organisations that assess potential effectively do not remove judgement from hiring. They improve it.
They replace vague impressions with observable signals. They distinguish between readiness today and capacity to grow tomorrow. They ground decisions in evidence rather than instinct.
This shift does not narrow opportunity. It widens it by focusing on capability rather than background.
What this means for your hiring
Hiring for potential is too important to leave to guesswork.
When potential is inferred from confidence, experience, or familiarity, organisations miss talent and create inconsistent outcomes. When it is assessed through job relevant signals of learning, judgement, and adaptability, decisions become fairer and more reliable.
If potential matters in your hiring decisions, the way you assess it matters even more.
To explore this in depth, download the whitepaper Why “Potential” Is Still Misunderstood, which draws on analysis of more than 10 million candidate assessments to show how organisations can assess potential with greater accuracy and confidence.