What should we consider when hiring someone with no experience?

We don’t hire for experience; we hire for potential.

While we do recruit people with the seniority and expertise required by each client for specific projects, our main focus (and passion) is hiring people with little or no experience to help them land their first job opportunity.

The challenge in these cases is that the CV often lacks evidence of how the candidate has applied their knowledge and skills. That’s why we focus on potential.

The word “potential” comes from the Latin potentia, meaning power or strength. It refers to the ability of someone or something to grow, develop, or create an impact, even if that ability hasn’t been fully expressed yet.

Although there’s no single way to measure potential, we look for evidence of a series of capabilities that have consistently shown us which people grow and do great work. Specifically, we focus on certain power skills (also known as soft skills) and a solid foundation of technical knowledge. We look for these through interview questions, real-life examples, and the attitudes people show in every interaction with us (including their CVs!) and through technical tests.

Our onboarding process has several stages that give us more tools and opportunities to get to know each candidate.

Below, we share what we look for when we talk about potential — and where we find it:

Clear Communication
We value people who can express themselves clearly, not just because it’s key to teamwork, but because it says a lot about how they think and stay organized.

We also pay attention to how their CV and LinkedIn are presented, and how they respond to our application questions.

Collaboration
We value people who can work well in teams because today’s problems are best solved by combining different perspectives and knowledge.

In CVs, we look for participation in group projects, volunteering, sports, or student activities — formal or informal. In interviews, we ask for specific examples of what the person contributed to the team and what they took away from the experience.

Proactivity
In early-career candidates, this is a powerful sign of future growth.

So we look for signs of initiative: self-learning, involvement in side projects, courses, hackathons, fairs, or anything extra. In interviews, we ask for concrete examples and observe their enthusiasm to learn, improve, and contribute. We also pay attention to their questions at the end, whether they ask for feedback, and how they communicate by email throughout the process.

Genuine Curiosity for Learning
Especially in interviews, we value candidates who share how they researched beyond their formal studies, explored new technologies, and show a clear desire to keep learning.

Many candidates show us their GitHub projects, apps they built for fun, or small collaborations — this shows initiative and commitment to self-growth.

Commitment and Responsibility
Someone who does what they say, meets deadlines, and takes their growth seriously makes a huge difference, especially in fast-paced, real-world settings. This usually becomes clear in interviews and is confirmed during the project.

Foundation in Tech Tools and Concepts
We don’t expect experts, but we do look for analytical thinking and a good understanding of programming basics.

We evaluate this through individual exercises and interviews with our senior tech team. A solid theoretical base is what allows experience to grow. We prioritize candidates who understand the why, not just the how. Even more so, those who grasp the business impact of their work and the problem they’re helping to solve.

Everything we observe during interviews — from technical skills to emotional intelligence — becomes part of the continuous development during the project. We combine formal training with a team of neuropsychologists and many hours of mentorship, coaching, and feedback. We evaluate our team not just by the quality of the software they deliver, but by the quality of the team they help build.

It’s important to recognize that an interview (or even a few) is a very short time to really get to know someone before hiring. We always take a risk. But our company offers something unusual: no off-limits clause. When the project ends, the client can offer to hire the person who worked with them, someone already trained in their tools, methods, and culture. That gives them a much longer runway to see them in action and make a hiring decision.

There’s a huge pool of people with no experience just waiting for a chance. If we know what to look for, we can tap into that talent.

The first step is to identify what skills are needed to grow an organization. Communication, collaboration, proactivity, curiosity, responsibility, and analytical thinking are the ones most commonly requested by our clients. After many projects, it’s become clear to us that once a basic technical foundation is in place, what makes the biggest difference in performance and growth are personal skills. Technical knowledge can be learned quickly. Our ambition and challenge is to become increasingly skilled at identifying that potential.

Written by the People Team at Teamcubation
Gabriela Schneider
Daiana de León
Florencia Diaz