This CEO says leaders “are doing everything backwards” when hiring teams

Now more than ever, it’s difficult to know what makes candidates attractive in a competitive job market. While layoffs and unemployment remained low at the start of this year, job seekers face an uphill battle as artificial intelligence eliminates entry-level positions and employers added just 50,000 jobs in December.

A founder says that, more than technical skills, being a good person is the quality that makes candidates more interesting to hire.

Also read: This billionaire CEO was a window cleaner and says the secret is to trust your intuition

Leila Hormozi, founder and CEO of Acquisition.com, said she learned her guiding hiring principle from Ritz-Carlton. Their philosophy is: “We don’t hire people who know how to make beds. We hire people who are good people,” she said in an Instagram video to her 1.2 million followers.

“Our process was to hire the right people. Not just hire people, but select people and then mentor them, not just put them to work, but mentor them to our way of thinking,” said Horst Schulze, co-founder of the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company, when reflecting on how the global chain developed its high standard, in a 2019 interview with Chief Executive.

Hormozi says he echoes this philosophy: “I want to hire people who have natural traits and who I only need to teach technical skills to.”

Hormozi co-founded Acquisition.com with her husband, Alex, in 2021. Before starting the private investment and consulting firm, she worked as a personal trainer and launched the fitness companies Gym Launch and Prestige Labs, as well as the software company Alan.

At age 28, her net worth exceeded $100 million, according to her. Acquisition.com today has a portfolio of more than US$200 million and partners with companies to scale and expand businesses.

“Your business is only as strong as the people you choose to lead it. The quickest way to destroy your business is to hire the wrong people,” Hormozi wrote in the caption of an Instagram post.

Some leaders “are doing everything backwards,” she added. “People overvalue technical skills and underestimate social and emotional skills.”

As artificial intelligence dominates technical skills used in administrative, human resources, finance and logistics roles, social-emotional skills such as adaptability and creative and analytical thinking are increasingly in demand, according to research from LinkedIn.

People with strong fundamental skills, such as collaboration, adaptability and basic math skills, typically learn faster and acquire more complex skills over time, shows a 2025 Harvard study on long-term performance and career progression.

Other business leaders share Hormozi’s philosophy.

“My advice to people would be critical thinking, learn skills, develop your EQ (emotional quotient), learn how to do well in a meeting, how to communicate, how to write,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said last month. “You will have lots of jobs.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has also long advocated empathy and emotional intelligence as fundamental workplace skills.

“IQ has its place, but it is not the only thing needed in the world,” Nadella said in an interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner in November. “And I’ve always felt that, at least for leaders, if you just have IQ without EQ, that’s just a waste of IQ.”