‘She outperformed everyone’: How a startup’s unorthodox hiring strategy turned a college fresher into a star performer
In an industry that often prizes experience and deep technical know-how, one startup’s radically simple hiring strategy is proving that potential can outshine credentials.
A few months ago, the team behind an early-stage tech startup found themselves wading through over 600 applications for a front-end role. Instead of opting for the conventional route of long interviews or take-home assignments—often criticized as unpaid labor—the startup chose a different path.
They shared a five-page primer on basic UX concepts with 100 shortlisted candidates and invited each for a 15-minute session. The catch? Every question was conceptual and derived strictly from the shared material. “It gave everyone a fair shot,” the founder shared on Reddit. “We weren’t testing for prior knowledge, but for the ability to think, learn, and apply.”
This approach led them to discover 10 standout candidates. One of them, still in college, would go on to outperform seasoned designers and developers on their team.
“At first, I was skeptical,” the founder admits. “But our CTO insisted we give her a chance—and she proved us all wrong.” The intern quickly emerged as one of the startup’s most valuable team members, not because she knew everything, but because she learned fast, worked with humility, and executed with consistency.
The experience has reinforced a key hiring principle for the team: prioritize learning ability over experience, especially in a startup environment where agility and growth matter more than static skillsets.
The founder also took a firm stand against exploitative assessment practices, such as unpaid assignments built around internal codebases. “That’s not evaluation—it’s free labor. And candidates can’t object because the power dynamics are too skewed,” they said.
The post triggered a long discussion on Reddit with many wondering if the intern was being paid for her work to which the author of the post replied in the positive.
Another user posted: “Ran 2 IT companies. Almost every year, the best intern outperformed 90% of the employees for us.” The user attributed it to a combination of factors. “Startups can afford best students, but not best employees. Interns are by default super motivated and out there to prove themselves. Startups often work with critical visibility / projects spanning the order of few months – rather than multi-year visions like large orgs – so they can afford to have critical work done by interns on such projects (which I think large companies cannot afford to or would rather not),” the user said.
