The Two Types of Employees That Actually Matter in Hiring

Barbara Corcoran, who built a $66M real estate empire, revealed her brutal hiring secret: she completely ignores resumes.

Instead, she splits every candidate into one of two buckets:

Expanders - The growth engines. These are your visionaries and risk-takers. They’re obsessed with “how far can we go?” Naturally good at sales, always hunting for new angles, recruiting talent, and pushing boundaries. They’re the ones who make you uncomfortable in the best way.

Containers - The backbone. They build systems, organize chaos, protect cash flow, ask hard questions nobody wants to ask. Finesse at operations, legal compliance, preventing disasters. They’re the reason your business doesn’t implode at 3 AM.

Corcoran’s play: Look for the opposite of what you already have. Team full of dreamers? Hire containers. All systems people? Bring in an expander.

The resume? It’s theater. What matters is: which one are they, and what’s your team actually hungry for right now?

What’s your hire style - are you Container-hunting or Expander-hunting?