Feb. 1, 2022
Here is the link.
I like to copy the article and paste in the following, so that I can easily highlight content and learn ideas much better just comparing to learning passively.
What do I value most when choosing a candidate?
Ever since I started leading the area of University Recruiting at Microsoft many people have been asking me this same question. And today I've decided to answer. But first a quick question: If you are in a race, and you overtake the racer who is third place, what position would you be in? (Say your answer out loud before continuing)
That challenge is part of a comment posted on www.goodreads.com, an excellent site for avid readers, who like me, enjoy discovering good books based on what others are reading.
A friend of mine was interviewing candidates for a position in his company. He asked one candidate, “If you are in a race, and you overtake the guy who is third, what position would you be in.”
The candidate promptly said, “Second”
It took some time before the catch sunk into him and he sheepishly said while leaving the room, “That should be third. It was a trick question!”
A couple of candidates later, my friend asked the question: “If you are in a race, and if you overtake the guy who is fifth, what position would you be in?”
And the candidate blurted out: “Third…”
And speaking about winning the interview race, I look for many different things of course, depending on the position for which the candidate is applying. However, what I most like to look for is signs of great curiosity. Am I in front of someone who considers themselves to be fully constructed, or a person who see themselves as still under construction?
When reviewing a resume, I too focus on discovering how much curiosity and in-depth knowledge that person acquired from the companies and projects in which they were involved. Was a passion for learning the driving force behind the changes made throughout their career?
Of course, in the context of an interview, many people tend to sell themselves as enthusiastic learners. To detect if the great curiosity is being simulated, I've found it effective to apply the Real-Time Learning Test: during our dialogue has that person been capable of learning something new? Do they incorporate any of my words, metaphors or ideas or do they just continue using the ones they brought along with them? Even in relation to the dynamic of the conversation: do they change their dancing steps to be able to dance along with me or do they continue to dance alone?
It's true that someone who demonstrates knowledge of a subject must first have opened their mind at some point to learn. But that knowledge does not inform us if the person is open to learning now, or even worse, if they are using everything they already know like an injection to numb their inner apprentice.
Have you ever come across those taxi drivers who were capable of learning and storing an entire city map in their heads? In Buenos Aires where I grew up, you can still find some: a marvelous memory trained through thousands of trips. But one day mapping technology arrived in the form of GPS systems, and many of those same taxi drivers dismissed them simply as a tool for novices.
Once, I was in a hurry to arrive in time for a meeting and decided to take a taxi. I indicated where we were going and asked the driver to take a specific route. I even repeated the indications twice because I knew it was an unusual, perhaps counterintuitive route. The driver arrived at the point in the road where he had to turn, and instead of following my instructions, he carried straight on!
Surprised, I asked him why he hadn't taken the turn. And he explained to me that the route he recommended was much faster based on his many trips of experience. We went a further two blocks and the traffic slowed to a walking pace, just as my phone had alerted me.
It's true, the first GPS were nothing more than an electronic map, but then smart maps appeared to tell us which roads are more traffic-free in this precise moment. And yet the most expert taxi drivers confuse the early GPS with the new intelligent GPS systems, and end up rejecting them, convinced that they already know they don't work. And…
But why do I place so much emphasis on the importance of the indicators of great curiosity and the size of the real-time learning muscle?
Because the degree of development of the learning muscle leads me to sense to what extent someone will be able to respond to the unexpected challenges that the company will face in the future. (And because curiosity is the most important value in my life. It's the key that allowed me to discover what today I feel is my mission: to learn, discover, and share).
During each of the seconds it took you to read the previous sentence our world has spun 465.11 meters (508.65 yd). Just like an improvising stage actress, an athlete in the middle of that final play or a professional jazz musician: if we want to stay current we need to become skilled at incorporating what is. To train ourselves to take as a fact what is happening, instead of focusing on what has happened or should have happened.
On a planet that never stands still, to keep learning is the least we can do to avoid clashing with the universe. You don't have to be a dinosaur to realize that stopping learning and resisting change are a great recipe for extinction -which is exactly what ends up happening when we go through life answering whatever they ask us with: "Third ..."
So that this doesn't happen to you, here's an excellent question to ask yourself several times per day: Am I Learning or Repeating?
Written by Diego Rejtman and Guillermo Echevarria
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