First thing I’ll say is, honestly, I don’t really care what school you went to or what you studied. In fact, for most people we hire, I barely even pay attention to these. That’s because as a fresh grad little or no work experience, my company is pretty much going to have to train and teach you everything you need to know to do your job with us well. So what matters to me most is the type of person you are. In particular, I look for two key qualities in the fresh grads we hire,
Self-awareness – It’s the first thing I look for. People with higher self-awareness are more mature, focused, and clear-minded about who they are and what they want. Most importantly, they approach things with a greater sense of purpose and are hungrier to achieve things. They may not know where they want to end up, but for instance, they know they want to be in a very professional environment, work with high-caliber people they can learn from, or build certain experience and capabilities.
As an example, we recently hired a young woman for our marketing team who graduated earlier this year. She’s someone that I’d say has very good self-awareness. For one, she told me that she specifically targeted our company, but not because we’re big or famous. In fact, she had never even heard of us before. But in reading our job description and some of our posts on Douban, she said she could tell we were the type of company she was looking for.
So when she came to our interview, she was very well prepared. She had visited our website and social media accounts, read many of my articles, watched many of my videos, and had a very good sense of what we’re trying to do. She gave great responses to what we wanted to know about her, and asked great questions.
She also told us she was relocating to Shanghai from her hometown specifically so she could work in a company where she could learn and develop faster, work in an international-caliber environment, and get into a great, hands-on marketing opportunity. Everything she communicated to us just hit the mark and showed her fit for our company. That comes from having strong self-awareness about yourself.
Attitude – They say, Attitude is everything. As a fresh graduate just starting out, this is especially true. You can be smart, ambitious, and capable, but if your attitude is not good, you’re going to be more difficult to work with and you’re not going to learn as fast. On the other hand, I’ve hired many people who didn’t have the most impressive backgrounds or weren’t the smartest (but smart enough) because they had a great attitude.
For instance, I avoid people who are stubborn, arrogant, closed-minded, me-oriented or too particular about what they’re willing to do. Tai mafan. Instead, I like people who are open-minded, humble, down-to-earth, eager to learn, and just willing to work hard and do what it takes. They’re easy to work with and just do their best to do what you teach them.
About two years ago, I met another young woman who just graduated from lower-tier school in a second-tier city, about two hours from Shanghai. But she was very proactive to attend professional activities and reach out to others to learn more. In fact, the way we met her is that she made the 2-hour trip to Shanghai to attend one of my presentations. After my talk, she approached and spoke to one of our colleagues. At the end of the event, my colleague said to me, “Hey Larry, I’ve been talking to this girl that I really like. She’s been asking me about what we do and kind of people we hire for our company, so I’ve been telling her. I think you should talk to her.”
I didn’t have time that evening, but we invited her to our company for an interview. When we met, she came across to me as easy-going, but with deep, internal desire to learn and become very good at something. She was a little nervous talking to me, but so sincere and earnest in trying to share with me what she was looking for. During our talk, I described to her our industry and company, and told her to think about both.
The next day, I got an email from her. In it, she didn’t try to convince me about or sell me anything. She just wanted to thank me and share with me what she learned from our talk, and what it helped her to understand better about herself. It was a very genuine, appreciative message. After a couple of more meetings, we hired her.
Of course, there are many job functions and industries where your degree and school you’re from are important. But we do recruitment, where no specific qualifications are needed to do this job well. It’s mainly about your desire and effort to become very good at it. Other entry-level jobs that are also like this include sales, marketing, account and customer servicing, operations, etc, Industries that are like this include the internet, consulting, consumer, business services, and talent industries, etc.
So what I’ll say is. Early in your career, if your background isn’t the most qualified or outstanding, don’t feel that you’re not worthwhile for employers to hire. Many good ones recognize that being successful in many situations is about much more than just intellect, good schools, and good grades. Your personal qualities can make up for a lot, especially if they include strong self-awareness and a great attitude.
By the way, if you’re interested in working for a company that genuinely values these 2 qualities, then send me a message! I’ll be happy to help you know more about us and what we do, and we can see if we may be a good fit for each other!
首先还是安利一波《Hire with Your Head》，这是美国一家猎头公司的老大集结几十年招聘经验写成的，是一种成体系的招聘方法。从设计岗位，到发布广告，到电话面试，到面试，到评估，到谈薪酬，到敲定待遇，到入职，整个体系讲得十分完整。当然，这本书里大部分内容都更适用于中高端岗位而不是入门级岗位，但整体思想是十分值得借鉴的。原作者后来出了一本《The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired》，这本书我还没看，但从标题来看，可能会有比较多指导应聘的内容，应该值得职场人士读一下。
学习能力，通常依靠面试之外的“课外作业”或者《Hire with Your Head》中所谓“最大成就”问题来考察。前者就是给候选人一个简单的任务去做，其中很多知识是他目前不掌握的，这样来查看候选人的学习能力。后者就是借助诸如“你有没有通过自学完成的课程要求之外的一个任务，聊一聊其中你觉得最难的一个”等问题，来考察候选人过去生活中运用学习能力的案例。如果你担心候选人可能说谎，可以不断追问事件细节，并要求候选人举出第二个、第三个案例。扯谎的候选人通常通不过这样的追问。
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