CEO Steven Bartlett hired a woman with zero experience because a tiny detail meant everything |
Given today's shaky economy, things are tough for young job-seekers. The unemployment rate for those aged 16 to 24 climbed to 10.5% at the end of 2025, the highest it's been in four years.
There are many reasons getting a gig is tough for younger people right now: AI is eating up many junior-level jobs, tariffs have slowed U.S. manufacturing, and people are clinging to their current roles, creating fewer opportunities.
Although there's no surefire tactic for landing a job in today's tough economy, a recent LinkedIn post from Diary of a CEO podcast host Steven Bartlett sheds light on what employers are looking for in young workers. He recently hired a woman with zero experience because of the exceptional people skills she demonstrated in a job interview. Bartlett is a Dragon on the UK’s Dragon's Den (similar to Shark Tank in the U.S.) and the founder of Flightstory, a media, marketing, and investment company.
"I hired someone whose CV was two lines. Their experience was zero... this taught me a critical hiring lesson," Bartlett wrote. "Much of the reason why I gave her the job was because: She thanked the security guard by name on the way into the building."
In addition to showing exceptional conscientiousness by thanking the security guard, she leveraged her inexperience to highlight other aspects of her skill set. "When she didn't know something, in the interview she said, 'I don't know that yet, but here's how I'd figure it out.' After the interview, she went and self-taught herself the answer she didn't know, and emailed it to me within hours," Bartlett continued. "She sent a thank-you note. To everyone after the interview."
Six months later, Bartlett says she's one of the best hires he's ever made. "This is the lesson... HIRE THE HARD THING. By this I mean hire the thing that's hardest to teach," he wrote. "You can show someone how to do marketing in a few weeks, you can't teach them real EQ [emotional intelligence] in a few weeks."
A young woman on a job interview.via Canva
Bartlett's post illustrates how, in today's world, companies place greater value on emotional intelligence, recognizing it as the special sauce that keeps an organization running smoothly. Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage one's own emotions and those of others.
"The importance of emotional competence comes from the observation in the business world, in academia, the military, and every human enterprise, that there are people who are highly competent in technical and analytical skills, but when they interact with others, projects stall," Ron Siegel, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, told The Harvard Gazette. "I suspect that business leaders have realized that it's relatively easy to get technical expertise in almost anything, but to get people who can understand and get along with one another, that is a challenge. In many projects, there is a growing awareness that this skill is going to be the one that carries the day."
A young woman on a job interview.via Canva
The post should offer some solace to young job hunters who lack experience but have strong emotional intelligence. A thin resume can be padded out by showing that you can be an incredible asset to the company culture.
"15 years of hiring has taught me that culture fit and character is MUCH harder to hire than experience, skills, or education," Bartlett wrote. "You can teach someone Excel in a weekend. You can't teach them to really give a sh*t about the work in a week."
Ribal Zebian, a student from the city of London in Ontario, Canada, already made headlines last year when he built an electric car out of wood and earned a $120,000 scholarship from it. Now, he's in the news again for something a little different. Concerned with homelessness in his hometown, Zebian got to work creating a different kind of affordable housing made from fiberglass material. In fact, he’s so confident in his idea that the 18-year-old plans on living in it for a year to test it out himself.
Currently an engineering student at Western University, Zebian was concerned by both the rising population of the unhoused in his community and the rising cost of housing overall. With that in mind, he conjured up a blueprint for a modular home that would help address both problems.
Zebian’s version of a modular home would be made of fiberglass panels and thermoplastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) foam. He chose those materials because he believes they can make a sturdy dwelling in a short amount of time—specifically in just a single day.
“With fiberglass you can make extravagant molds, and you can replicate those,” Zebian told CTV News. “It can be duplicated. And for our roofing system, we’re not using the traditional truss method. We’re using actually an insulated core PET foam that supports the structure and structural integrity of the roof.”
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Zebian also believes these homes........