How to hire low experience, high potential people
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How to hire low experience, high potential people
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Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#2This is exactly what I do with my team. I staff the upper levels first with people I trust (people have worked with me for 15 years across 4 different companies now) and then start fleshing out the rest of the teams beneath them with high potential n00bs.
Why? Because that’s what I was when I started and now I’m paying it forward.
It’s been a very successful model and continues to be.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#3The list of indicators are great and spot-on.
But in terms of how to assess them, a lot of the advice here boils down to "you'll know it when you see it."
So I think this advice is best for seasoned hiring managers. If you're just starting out, it's going to be hard to accurately detect some of the nuance and subjective elements.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#4I like that this isn't your typical skills demo.
I changed careers at age 40+, learned to code, now years later enjoying it. It just took someone who thought I could grow.
Interestingly I was hired along side some capable, albeit green, college grads. The difference in terms of understanding how a business works, speaking to customers, asking questions / follow through to get down to the problem we're solving was enormous. They could code circles around me, but they also just wanted to be told exactly what to code and had no interest beyond exactly that.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#5> Most smart people are actually terrible at having the drive/follow through to take things to completion. They’ll usually want to give up at the first sign of failure or slowness.
You can also hire that really "smart" person from a large co to a startup and watch them be extremely successful in a low-friction environment for crossing the finish line.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#6> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.”
Utterly ridiculous.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#7> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Once you’ve gotten the overview, dive into each “chapter” and plumb the depths for their real stories. Go back to their childhood! I learn a lot about their grit and commitment to excellence from their basketball obsession or maybe their experience caring for a dying parent.
I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing this much personal information with a stranger on a job interview.
Additionally, it sounds more like a psychological evaluation, than evaluation of a person's potential at a job. I understand that maybe that's exactly the writer's intention, but I'd personally be wary of companies which ask questions like this.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#8> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Once you’ve gotten the overview, dive into each “chapter” and plumb the depths for their real stories. Go back to their childhood! I learn a lot about their grit and commitment to excellence from their basketball obsession or maybe their experience caring for a dying parent. I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing th…
> I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing this much personal information with a stranger on a job interview.
Then lie and tell a good story.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#9> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Once you’ve gotten the overview, dive into each “chapter” and plumb the depths for their real stories. Go back to their childhood! I learn a lot about their grit and commitment to excellence from their basketball obsession or maybe their experience caring for a dying parent. I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing th…
> I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing this much personal information with a stranger on a job interview. Then lie and tell a good story.
Good point! Seems like the writer has accidentally optimized his interview for narcissists, psychopaths and pathological liers who excel at manipulation, instead of true high-potential young people :)
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#10> Most smart people are actually terrible at having the drive/follow through to take things to completion. They’ll usually want to give up at the first sign of failure or slowness. You can also hire that really "smart" person from a large co to a startup and watch them be extremely successful in a low-friction environment for crossing the finish line.
> > Most smart people are actually terrible at having the drive/follow through to take things to completion. They’ll usually want to give up at the first sign of failure or slowness.
Also, sometimes these people who don't follow through to take things to completion might "just" have something like ADHD. Struggling with finishing tasks is a very common ADHD symptom, and a good manager will help someone use the other "good" skills to compensate for such an issue. (Personally I believe the reason for this is perfectionism.)