Steven Bartlett is known as someone who doesn’t follow the rules. In fact, while most podcasters chase big-money deals with media giants, the 33-year-old founder of The Diary of a CEO walked away from a $100 million offer because he believes that no one can grow his empire better than he can.
As one who rewrites the rules, he doesn’t really think that people with the best degree and most work experience should always be considered over others without those backgrounds.
He recently explained that he took a chance on an applicant whose CV was almost blank. “I hired someone who’s CV was two lines. Their experience was zero,” Bartlett explained in a LinkedIn post. “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.”
Indeed, Bartlett explained that the applicant’s humility and integrity landed her the job, not her credentials or educational background. Her attitude during the hiring process also worked wonders for her.
“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,’” Bartlett explained. “After the interview she went and self-taught herself the answer she didn’t know, and emailed it to me within hours.”
Six months into her job, she became one of Bartlett’s best hires. “Fifteen years of hiring has taught me that culture fit and character is MUCH harder to hire than experience, skills or education.”
A recent Hiring Trends Report found employers are moving away from relying solely on CVs, with only 37% rating credentials and learning history as reliable indicators of talent.
“Four in 10 employers said they are actively moving away from CV-first hiring, and 10% have replaced CVs with skills-based and scenario-driven assessments,” the report by Willo added. Around 15% are seeking other alternatives.
Euan Cameron, CEO and co-founder at Willo, said: “The CV used to tell a story of effort, experience, and aptitude, now it often tells us how well someone can prompt a large language model.
“Great candidates are getting lost in a wall of near identical applications, and the best hiring teams are catching on to that. AI is not the end of hiring, what it does mean is the end of hiring based on summaries of experience alone.”
He added: “Employers are looking for real signals of capability, which means moving beyond a single document into skills, scenarios and verified credentials.”
Bartlett is one of those employers looking for more than credentials or work history.
When he started his podcast in 2017, he was a nobody in the social media world. So he A/B tested everything; keywords, thumbnails, even his facial expressions. His breakthrough came in 2023 with an episode featuring ex-Google exec Mo Gawdat. Apple named it the most-shared podcast of the year.
“That episode taught me that the most important thing in podcasting isn’t actually the amount of followers someone has or how famous they are. It’s ultimately about the value that it gives, because people will share it.”
Bartlett’s hunger stems from his past. Born in Botswana to a Nigerian mother and British father, he grew up as an outsider in the English countryside. He recounted being the “Black kid, the poor kid.” Entrepreneurship became his escape. He dropped out of university to launch Wallpark, a student forum, then built Social Chain into a $200 million company by age 26.
He went on to grow his podcast after various achievements including investments in SpaceX and a role on Dragon’s Den.
