And You, Would You Have Hired Them?

You’re the Artistic Director for a streaming platform.

What do you do?

 

You’re looking for a Storyteller Lead with a relatively boundless imagination, someone who can create captivating narratives and transform complex ideas into accessible stories.

 

This morning, a CV has landed on your desk—one that is, well, let’s say… a bit unusual.

A CV that, at first glance, doesn’t seem particularly impressive.

 

Education? Relatively modest in French and classical literature from a provincial university with no great acclaim.

Professional experience? All over the place, and nowhere at the same time… various odd jobs as a bilingual secretary, with no real satisfaction or personal fulfillment.

 

A long period of unemployment, living on welfare. A difficult divorce. The candidate is still on welfare, looking for their next breath of air.

 

To top it off, it seems this person doesn’t have the easiest character: they don’t like authority, their sense of discipline leaves much to be desired, and they persist in trying to find success their own way, come hell or high water.

Their CV is clearly not the most impressive in the stack.

 

But if you dig a little deeper, you find a rare kind of resilience. A single parent, with no stable income, who still managed to write. Every day. For years.

They built, line by line, an entire universe while everything around them pushed them to give up. Personal and professional failures? They fueled their creativity.

Rather than giving up, this person poured everything they had into their most valuable asset: their imagination. Perhaps it was also their refuge.

 

Unbridled creativity? Absolutely, it shows in their work. Unimaginable self-discipline? Definitely. In the middle of a crisis, they set themselves a goal and held onto it, relentlessly. This person managed to carry out this titanic project long-term, alone, without a team, without a safety net.

And yet, they sent their manuscript to several publishers. 12 rejected it. They still persisted… and now their CV is in your hands.

In short, a lot of determination, but still… nothing but failure so far.

 

Next to that, you have the perfect CV. Literature from Oxford, a creative award, and five years as a screenwriter at Netflix. It’s a dream come true.

Of course, this atypical candidate doesn’t have the degree or experience you’d expect for this type of position. But they have a tenacity that many of the smoother candidates could envy.

They have the soft skills, no doubt about it.

So, would you hire them?

What do you do?

 

No. Too risky, you can’t rely too much on soft skills… You validate your star candidate and start drafting your rejection email to the person who intrigued you so much.

 

“Dear Mrs. Rowling,

It is with deep regret that we inform you that we have chosen to move forward with another candidate…’’