Jason Fried

June 4, 2025

Years of evidence

"Years of experience" has been a gold standard hiring requirement since forever.

It's a terrible one.

Someone can do something for years and have nothing to show for it.

Seek people with "Years of evidence" instead.

People with deep examples of work. Piles of stuff they've made. An overflowing collection of output they're proud to share.

If someone's brand new in their formal career, they might have little traditional experience, but if someone's been loving this kind of work for a long time, there's a good chance they already have a collection of hobby projects or other literal examples of their work they can't wait to show off.

Titles, tenure, and paths don’t matter. The work does. Always look at the work. It's the truth.

-Jason

About Jason Fried

Hey! I'm Jason, the Co-Founder and CEO at 37signals, makers of Basecamp and HEY. Subscribe below to follow my thinking on business, design, product development, and whatever else is on my mind. Thanks for visiting, thanks for reading.