When you apply for a job, prior experience is always great to have. If you lack it, make a point to showcase your motivation to learn, says Everette Taylor.

Taylor is the head of crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. He's his own proof of concept, he tells CNBC Make It: He was hired two years ago, at age 33, without "a strong, proven track record" as a CEO. He did, however, have "the willingness to be hungry enough to learn," he says.

His top priority for vetting job candidates now: whether they can genuinely perform the job they're seeking and, if they haven't done it before, whether they're "committed to learning" and "putting in the work," he says. It may sound "boring," he notes, but that doesn't make it less important.

"I don't care about degrees," says Taylor. "I don't care about fancy companies. I don't care about fancy titles. Can this person actually do the job? Can they execute at a high level what I need them to do in their role?"

Kickstarter hired Taylor amid stagnant company growth and tension between employees and leadership, Fortune reported in June. The company, which is privately owned, declined Make It's request to comment on its valuation.

'You have to be ravenous'

Plenty of CEOs stress the value of being ever-eager to learn on the job.

Amazon boss Andy Jassy, for example, preaches the value of continual curiosity. "You have to be ravenous and hungry to find ways to learn," Jassy said in a video posted by Amazon in May. An appetite for knowledge separates people with successful careers from those with "stagnant" professional journeys, he added.

"For some people, at a certain point, they find it too threatening or too difficult to keep learning," Jassy said. "The second you think there's little left for you to learn is the second that you are unwinding as an individual and as a learning professional."

Hiring managers often look for people with a "growth mindset," or a commitment to always improving themselves, LinkedIn workforce expert Aneesh Raman told Make It in March. The mentality especially matters for early-career professionals, he said.

"You've got to get excited about learning as an individual," Raman said. "The biggest competitive differentiator a young grad can have is internalizing the idea that they're going to be learning for the rest of their life and getting excited about it."

Taylor also places a premium on hires who are "mission-driven" and can put their egos aside, admit when they're wrong and collaborate well, he says.

"They're a team player, they're adaptable and versatile," says Taylor, who asks job candidates in interviews to discuss their mistakes or failures as a test of their self-awareness and ego discipline.

This story has been updated to clarify Kickstarter's response to Make It's request for comment on its valuation.

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