What a CV cannot tell you

Every hiring mistake we are asked to unwind began with a persuasive CV. That is not a coincidence; it is selection bias built into the process. The CV is a record of outcomes, curated by the person it describes, and outcomes travel badly between contexts.

Style is the missing data

Two salespeople can both show 140 percent of quota. One built it on patient, referral-led trust; the other on volume and pressure. Both numbers are real. Put each in front of a private client base in Dubai, where a burned relationship stays burned, and the same number predicts opposite outcomes. The difference between them is not in any CV; it is working style: tempo, candour, impulse control, follow-through.

Interviews measure performance, not style

An interview is a performance by a motivated performer, and senior salespeople are professionally excellent at exactly this performance. Structured assessment removes the audience. One hundred and twenty questions, answered privately, with integrity checks that notice flat patterns and implausible speed, produce a banded profile that is far harder to perform than an hour of charm.

Use both, in the right order

None of this argues against experience; it argues against sequence. Read the working-style profile first, then read the CV through it. The CV tells you what the person achieved. The profile tells you how, and whether that how survives contact with your clients, your pace and your standards. Evidence first, instinct second is the whole method.