Most hiring systems are designed to answer one question:

Can this person do the job?

Recruiters spend their time answering a very different one:

Will this person thrive here?

That distinction sits at the heart of Episode 6 of The Signal Lab. In the second installment of our five-part investigation into how hiring decisions are really made, Ian Davidson sits down with Jordan Franklin, co-founder and CEO of Stratus Consulting, an IT staffing firm that speaks with hundreds of candidates every week and has placed thousands of professionals into organizations ranging from Northwest Arkansas startups to Fortune 1 companies.

What emerges from the conversation is a fascinating realization: staffing firms aren't simply matching resumes to job descriptions. They're filling in the gaps left by the hiring systems we've built.

Jordan explains that her recruiters certainly evaluate technical skills—but they lean heavily on assessments to validate those. The real work happens somewhere else.

Most importantly, they try to answer a question no résumé can:

What will this person actually be like to work with?

Along the way, Jordan shares why many of her clients never publicly post open positions, why passive candidates often become the strongest hires, and why staffing firms function as trusted advisors for both employers and candidates.

She also introduces the philosophy behind Gumption, the AI-powered platform Stratus is building after years of learning what traditional hiring systems fail to capture. Rather than simply matching people to jobs, Gumption aims to understand the human behind the résumé and match people to the teams where they'll actually succeed.

Signal Mapping Connection

Throughout this series, The Signal Lab is reverse-engineering hiring.

Hiring managers look for trust, character, and judgment.

Recruiters look for motivation, culture fit, and long-term success.

Assessments validate technical capability.

Each stage relies on different signals.

If we hope to build better digital credentials, better learner records, better AI, and better workforce systems, we first need to understand what information humans actually use to make hiring decisions.

Recruiters have quietly spent decades building richer profiles because the systems around them haven't.

Perhaps the next generation of workforce infrastructure shouldn't replace that understanding.

It should make it portable.

Resources

Jordan Franklin

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-franklin-gumption/

Stratice Consulting: https://mystratice.com/

Signol Labs: https://signollabs.com/

Signal Mapping: https://signollabs.com/blog-signal-mapping/

Connect with Ian Davidson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianwdavidson/

Schedule a conversation: https://signollabs.com/contact-us/

If your organization is designing hiring technology, talent marketplaces, digital credentials, Learning and Employment Records, or workforce infrastructure, we'd love to compare notes. This investigation is helping shape a practical framework for understanding the signals that actually drive hiring decisions.

The hiring process is full of advice.

Optimize your resume.

Use the right keywords.

Build your LinkedIn profile.

Customize every application.

But what actually matters once a human being sits across the table from another human being and decides whether to make an offer?

That's the question at the center of Episode 5 of The Signal Lab.

To answer it, Ian Davidson speaks with three employers who hire in completely different environments:

Brad Robinson, District Manager at Mattress Firm, who has hired hundreds of sales professionals and built one of the strongest retention records in the company.

James Harris, CEO of High Impact Analytics, who recruits analysts, consultants, and business leaders in the Walmart ecosystem.

Christy Lamers, founder of Blossom Landscape Design and co-founder of Life Outside, who hires almost entirely through relationships, reputation, and instinct.

The result is an unusually honest look at how people actually make hiring decisions.

What emerges is both simple and surprising.

Resumes matter—but only as a starting point.

The interview matters more.

And what employers are really trying to understand isn't who you were.

It's who you'll become after they hire you.

Will you stay?

Will you solve problems?

Will you work well with others?

Will you ask for help when you need it?

Will you care about the people around you?

Will you make the culture stronger?

Across industries, the same themes keep appearing: honesty, curiosity, coachability, teamwork, resilience, and the ability to do hard things. Employers consistently look for signals that extend far beyond education, certifications, or job titles.

The conversation also reveals a deeper challenge.

Many people possess valuable experiences, skills, and capabilities that never appear on a resume because they don't believe those experiences matter. Yet those hidden signals are often exactly what employers wish they could see.

This episode is the first installment in a four-part Signal Mapping series exploring how hiring decisions are made—and what information actually matters at each stage of the process.

Signal Mapping Connection

If we want digital credentials, learner records, and talent marketplaces to create better outcomes, we first need to understand the demand side of the market.

What information do employers actually use?

What signals do they trust?

What helps them predict success?

This episode starts answering those questions.

Resources

Brad Robinson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-robinson-sales-management/

James Harris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-harris-a777055/

Signol Labs: https://signollabs.com/

Signal Mapping: https://signollabs.com/blog-signal-mapping/

Connect with Ian Davidson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianwdavidson/

Schedule a conversation: https://signollabs.com/contact-us/

Thank you for listening to The Signal Lab.

The future of opportunity is being built in many different rooms.

Let's connect them.

Most people spend years learning.

Then one day someone asks a simple question:

"What did you learn?"

And surprisingly often, the answer doesn't come easily.

Not because people didn't learn anything.

Not because they didn't gain valuable skills.

But because we've never really built systems that help people understand, communicate, and carry their capabilities through the world.

That's the challenge at the heart of Episode 4 of The Signal Lab.

My guest is Taylor Hansen, Principal of Achievement Wallet Strategy & Ecosystem at Western Governors University (WGU). Taylor has spent years helping educational institutions, employers, and technology providers rethink how learning records, credentials, skills data, and career systems should work together.

But this conversation isn't really about wallets, blockchains, standards, or technology.

It's about helping people understand the value they've already created.

Together, we explore a simple but profound reality: most people struggle to explain what they learned from their education.

Ask someone what degree they earned and they'll answer immediately.

Ask them what they actually learned and the conversation often stops.

That disconnect creates challenges throughout the workforce ecosystem.

Students struggle to articulate their capabilities.

Employers rely on proxies like degrees because they lack better information.

Career transitions become harder than they should be.

And institutions often lose visibility into the value they helped create.

Throughout the conversation, Taylor explains how WGU is tackling these challenges through its Achievement Wallet initiative. The university has mapped competencies, skills, credentials, and learning outcomes across its programs to help learners better understand, document, and communicate their capabilities.

More importantly, they're asking a bigger question:

What if educational institutions didn't stop serving students at graduation?

What if they helped learners continuously understand their skills, identify gaps, navigate careers, and build upon their achievements throughout their lives?

About Taylor Hansen

Taylor Hansen is Principal of Achievement Wallet Strategy & Ecosystem at Western Governors University.

Prior to WGU, Taylor worked with the Presidents' Forum and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation's T3 Innovation Network, helping advance digital credentials, skills-based hiring, learner records, and workforce interoperability initiatives.

Connect with Taylor:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-hansen-0a4b024/

Learn More

Signol Labs: https://signollabs.com/

Signal Mapping: https://signollabs.com/blog-signal-mapping/

Connect with Ian Davidson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianwdavidson/

Schedule a Conversation: https://signollabs.com/contact-us/

If you're a higher education leader exploring digital credentials, learner records, competency-based education, career navigation, or workforce alignment, we'd love to hear what you're building.