How Hiring Managers Evaluate Freshers in Just 20 Minutes
Hiring managers do not spend the first 20 minutes judging freshers on GPA alone. They look for clarity…
May 6, 2026
Written by Sharjeel Shaikh for Let’s Enterprise.
Coding is hard. Finance is hard.
But making someone feel genuinely heard, consistently and intentionally, especially under pressure, is harder. And nobody is automating that.
After working with hundreds of students and professionals, one pattern stands out: the people who grow fastest are not always the most articulate. They are often the most coachable.
School rewards people who speak well. The real world rewards people who understand well.
That gap shows up quickly in the workplace, often in the first team meeting, when someone confidently answers a question nobody actually asked.
That is not a knowledge problem. It is a listening problem.
Most of us do not listen to understand. We listen to respond. We rush to fill silence not because we have something meaningful to add, but because silence makes us uncomfortable. In that rush, we miss what is actually being said.
The people who grow quickly are usually not the loudest people in the room. They are the ones who can absorb what is being said, process it honestly, and use it to improve.
Coachability is built on two difficult skills:
These are hard to test in classrooms, hard to display on resumes, and hard to fake over time. But they shape long-term professional growth more than most technical credentials.
Most people think feedback is correction. It is not. Feedback is care delivered with honesty.
Feedback without care is noise. It does not move people. Care without feedback is avoidance. It protects the comfort of the giver at the cost of the growth of the receiver.
Real feedback lives in the uncomfortable middle. It says: I see you, and I believe you can do better.
That takes courage every single time.
Your edge is not just your GPA. It is how well you understand people, process guidance, and improve from it. Develop that muscle early.
Marks and degrees matter, but a deeper question matters more in the long term: can your child take feedback without becoming defensive? That is real leverage for life and work.
Hire for coachability. Technical skills can be taught. The ability to listen deeply, adapt honestly, and grow from feedback cannot be faked for very long.
The rarest skill in a world full of noise is not speaking well.
It is making someone feel heard.
That skill improves collaboration, leadership, teamwork, and trust. It also creates the foundation for better execution because people work better with those who actually understand them.
At Let’s Enterprise, this is built into every program not as a separate module, but as a daily practice. Real projects. Real feedback. Real growth.
If you are curious about what education that actually prepares students for the real world looks like, explore the Working BBA at letsenterprise.in.
Do you listen to respond, or do you listen to understand?
Let's Enterprise is a pioneering educational institution that empowers students with hands-on business skills through its unique UG-M.E.D. program. With campuses in Pune and Goa, it bridges the gap between traditional learning and real-world experience, shaping the future of tomorrow's entrepreneurs.
Discover how our first-year students are actively engaging in real-world business projects, guided by facilitator Sharjeel Shaikh.