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Looks Good on Paper
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.
Looks Good on Paper
What Really Drives Great Hires? The Fundamentals Most Companies Skip
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After a decade embedded in the Toronto tech ecosystem — including time as Executive in Residence at MaRS — Daneal Charney has seen every version of hiring go right and go wrong. The patterns that produce great hires aren't mysterious. Most companies just don't have the patience or the process to consistently follow them.
The fundamentals that work are the ones teams abandon first when they're under pressure: role clarity before opening the req, structured criteria before the first interview, debrief discipline after each conversation. None of them are complicated. All of them are consistently skipped.
In this episode of Looks Good on Paper, Daneal breaks down what the best hiring decisions have in common, where fractional HR leadership changes the trajectory of an early-stage company, and why the basics that drive great hires are the first things to get cut when teams are stretched.
What you'll learn:
→ The consistent patterns behind the best hiring decisions Daneal has observed
→ Why the fundamentals of great hiring are the first things abandoned under pressure
→ How fractional HR leadership changes hiring outcomes at early-stage companies
GUEST
Daneal Charney — Fractional HR Executive & Leadership Coach
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/danealcharney/
YOUR HOSTS
Anita Chauhan — Fractional CMO, co-host
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan/
CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Intro
00:16 Guest Introduction
01:48 Biggest Hiring Mistake
11:32 Unknown Hidden Bias
13:37 Most Surprising Hire
16:46 Wildcard: Thoughts on one-way video interview tools?
18:45 Conclusion
19:07 Outro
LISTEN & FOLLOW
Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/0dbfz6y0tMq3crViHQD66H
Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1625835562
All episodes → https://looksgoodonpaper.buzzsprout.com
WATCH ON YOUTUBE - https://youtu.be/_Y4aBtfgQR0
POWERED BY WILLO
Hire humans, not resumes → https://www.willo.video/looks-good-on-paper
CONNECT 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.
Great hiring outcomes share a set of consistent fundamentals: clarity about the role before it opens, structured evaluation criteria agreed on before candidates are seen, and disciplined debrief processes after interviews. These aren't complicated. They are consistently skipped when teams are under pressure — which is exactly when skipping them does the most damage.
Show Resources
- Willo: willo.video - The most cost-effective way to screen candidates at scale. Interview candidates anywhere & at any time
- CV Free Toolkit: cvfree.me/join - Break up with the CV and get everything you need to modernize your hiring approach with skills-based assessments
- Anita Chauhan: linkedin.com/in/anitachauhan - Connect with the host
