When Olipop CEO Ben Goodwin interviews job candidates, he’s not swayed by a glittering résumé or a long tenure at a blue-chip company. What truly captures his attention is one quality above all: passion.
Goodwin, 40, tells CNBC Make It that he looks for candidates with “that real fire in their belly”—a deep, intrinsic drive to succeed. “Between passion and technical acumen, passion always wins out,” he says. “If you have enough real passion, you’ll typically learn the acumen.” The reverse, however, can be problematic: someone with strong technical skills but no emotional investment may feel disconnected from their work or the company’s mission—both of which are essential for building a motivated, high-performing team.
This shift isn’t unique to Olipop. According to LinkedIn’s “Skills on the Rise 2025” report, employers across industries are increasingly prioritizing soft skills like adaptability, conflict resolution, innovative thinking, and public speaking over hard, technical abilities.
While “passion” might sound like a buzzword, recruiters say it’s far more meaningful than it appears. Nolan Church—who has led talent acquisition at Google and DoorDash and is now CEO of the talent marketplace Continuum—advises job seekers to include their passions in the “interests” section of their résumé. “If you give a s--- about something,” Church told CNBC Make It in 2023, “it tells me that you have the potential to give a s--- about your work.”
For Goodwin, that inner fire does more than fuel motivation—it fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility. Passionate employees tend to approach decisions more thoughtfully and act with greater care toward their teammates and the company’s mission. He points to his own career as proof: “There have been moments where I’ve turned down significant sums of money—even when I really needed it—because it would have compromised the long-term mission. I’m either serious about Olipop’s purpose or I’m not. Passion gives you that guiding philosophy.”
On the flip side, there’s one trait that immediately raises red flags for Goodwin: an inflated ego. “We cannot hire people whose personal egos are bigger than the team’s mission,” he says. To assess this, he asks candidates pointed questions about self-awareness. “To keep your ego in check, you need to understand your derailers—which means you have to be humble or vulnerable enough to admit them, and also have strategies to manage them,” he explains. “Someone who can articulate that whole cluster has likely done serious self-work—and that’s exactly the kind of person we want.”