Five Lessons From Would You Hire You? That Made Me Reflect on How I Work

I recently read Would You Hire You? by Matt Adolphe, and the title alone asks a useful question.

Most of us naturally evaluate our careers from our own perspective.

We know how hard we are trying.

We know the pressures we are dealing with.

We understand our intentions.

The people we work with experience something different.

They experience our output, attitude, reliability, judgment, communication, and how we behave when things become difficult.

That makes "Would you hire you?" a more challenging question than it initially appears.

Five ideas from the book stayed with me.

1. Bring Solutions, Not Only Problems

Spotting problems is useful.

It becomes much more valuable when you can also think about what could happen next.

That does not mean you need to have the perfect solution before raising an issue.

A better approach is:

• Explain the problem clearly.
• Show why it matters.
• Identify what may be causing it.
• Suggest one or two possible responses.
• Ask for input where necessary.

This changes you from someone who reports problems into someone who helps solve them.

2. Become Someone People Want on Their Team

Competence matters enormously.

But most of us have worked with someone who was technically excellent and still made every project exhausting.

How you work with people matters too.

Are you dependable?

Do you communicate?

Can you disagree respectfully?

Do you take ownership when something goes wrong?

Can people trust you to do what you said you would do?

These qualities may not always appear in a job description, but they influence how people experience working with you.

3. Pay Attention to Your Blind Spots

Feedback can be uncomfortable because it occasionally conflicts with the version of ourselves we have in our heads.

I have learned to become more curious about it.

Not every piece of feedback will be accurate or useful.

Patterns deserve attention.

If different people are independently telling you the same thing, there may be something worth examining.

The goal is to ask:

• What specifically are they observing?
• When does this behavior show up?
• What impact is it having?
• What could I do differently?

Feedback becomes more useful when translated into behavior.

4. Consistency Builds Trust

Your best day does not define your reputation.

Your normal days do.

People notice whether you meet commitments consistently, maintain quality under pressure, and follow through when nobody is chasing you.

That reliability creates trust.

And trust often leads to larger responsibilities.

5. Your Professional Reputation Is Always Developing

We sometimes reduce personal brand to what appears publicly.

A significant part of your reputation is built privately.

It is built in meetings.

In emails.

During difficult projects.

In how you treat people who cannot do anything for your career.

In what you do when you make a mistake.

In whether people can depend on you.

That is why I found the book's central question useful.

Would you hire you?

Would you want yourself on an important project?

Would you trust yourself with greater responsibility?

Would you enjoy managing yourself?

If any of those answers make you uncomfortable, that is not necessarily a bad thing.

It may simply show you where the next stage of your growth needs to begin.