Hiring evidence / 3 min read
A resume cannot prove transformation ability
Resumes now list the same platforms and almost none of the outcomes. For manufacturing data and AI roles, that creates real hiring risk. The evidence of capability is not in the keywords. It is in what the person designed, built, fixed and led. Hire on evidence, not credentials.
The operating reality
Identical profiles, different experience. Two candidates list the same data and ERP platforms. One attended meetings while an integrator designed the platform. The other built the ingestion pattern, resolved source data issues, implemented governance and supported it in production. Same keywords, different ability. The gap widens at the leadership level, where a candidate can be attached to a large transformation without owning the roadmap, team, budget or result.
The market is moving to evidence. Skills-based hiring shifts the assessment toward behavioral interviews and competency-based role descriptions. Structured interviews outperform informal ones because candidates answer job-related questions against common criteria. For cloud, data and AI roles, probe: What problem were you hired to solve? What did you own? Which architecture did you choose and why? What failed? Who resisted? Did it reach production? What result changed? Real operators move fluently between strategy, technical detail and business impact.
Test the work, proportionately. Not every role needs a long assessment, but every role should include a realistic demonstration: a cloud architect reviewing a simplified architecture for risk, a data engineer explaining an ERP ingestion pipeline, a data scientist judging a predictive maintenance use case, a leader sequencing a fragmented portfolio. Work samples and structured interviews are stronger predictors than resume-led selection. Keep it fair and never extract unpaid client work.
Domain knowledge changes the questions. A recruiter who understands the environment can push past the platform name: Was the data from ERP, MES or sensors? Batch or streaming? How was inventory reconciled? How did the model reach the floor? Who owned the product after launch? Without that context, screening is keyword matching.
The Sebastian Group view
We assess candidates against your use cases, platforms, culture and stage. That means defining the scorecard before the search, running structured evidence-based interviews and validating outcomes through references and technical review. The resume earns attention. Evidence earns the offer.