HTA-0600: George Anders — The Rare Find (Hiring Exceptional Talent)

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Summary

Henry interviews George Anders, veteran Wall Street Journal/Bloomberg journalist, about his book 'The Rare Find' on spotting exceptional talent.

Full Transcript

00:00
So this year's book, The Rare Find, is really written for executives to help them find exceptional talent to spot that special person that they should hire.

00:11
It's written by George Anders, a veteran business journalist.

00:15
He works for The Wall Street Journal, works for Bloomberg now.

00:18
But we're going to flip it around the other way.

00:20
We're going to talk about how you can be that exceptional talent, how you can help those executives figure out that you're the guy, you're the woman that should get this job.

00:30
So what are some of the things that you might want to bring to a job application or a job interview that you wouldn't automatically think of?

00:40
So the first one is just bring your personality.

00:42
And it's not so much a matter of being yourself.

00:44
Anyone will tell you that.

00:45
But it's come in with some verbs, some energy, so you stand out.

00:49
Anyone who's hiring is going to meet a lot of button-down people who are trying to sort of play it right down the middle.

00:54
A couple of the really successful hiring examples that I found in the book,

00:58
Zach Canfield, who's done very well at the Goodby Silverstein Ad Agency,

01:01
when he came to them, his last job was running a tattoo parlor.

01:05
It has nothing to do with advertising.

01:07
Well, it does in a way.

01:08
I mean, it's eating Joe's on your arm, I suppose.

01:10
You make a big impression on the customers, yes.

01:14
But, you know, someone like that, it's a fascinating interview.

01:17
And all of the senior people who were screening him were going, you know, tell me more about it.

01:21
And they got a sense of, hey, there's a warm, engaging guy.

01:25
We might want to have him here.

01:27
So don't be afraid to stand out.

01:28
In fact, you ought to stand out in a world where there are lots of reasons to say no.

01:32
Give people a reason to say yes.

01:34
You know, one of the things about that particular example, though, is the concept that you don't need to stick with what, I mean, everybody now these days knows, well, you don't have to do exactly what you did before.

01:44
but I'm talking about going completely in the opposite direction or largely in the opposite direction.

01:50
And that's clearly the case these days for many people.

01:53
Think different, as it were.

01:55
Yeah, and especially if you're going into a field that is growing where there is no established track record.

02:00
If you're coming in a couple years ago as a software engineer building Web 2.0, there wasn't really a path.

02:06
I mean, you could have come in doing all kinds of other things.

02:09
So look for the fields that are growing and recycle your stories so that they work.

02:13
Bring some laughter. Have fun.

02:15
For the person on the other side of the interviewing process,

02:18
this can be a chore or it can be the best part of their day.

02:21
Figure out a way to make it the best part of their day.

02:23
A little hard to do the laughter thing when you're scared to death.

02:26
This is like, this is my whole life.

02:28
This is the most important interview. Please, I want this job.

02:30
So that's actually the key.

02:31
You need to let go of that feeling and go, you know what?

02:34
I'm just sort of walking through one more audition.

02:37
I tell the story of how Taylor Swift, the pop singer, got discovered.

02:40
And her lyrics were funny.

02:42
I mean, there was a sort of thinking in Nashville, you don't hire 15-year-olds.

02:45
They're just not going to be ready for it.

02:48
But the guy who listened to her, the thing he remembered most was just bursting out laughing at pictures to burn

02:54
because of how sassy and edgy her words were.

02:56
Don't be afraid to let the interviewer have fun.

02:59
I mean, make it a joyous moment.

03:02
Resumes are officially no longer the way you get jobs,

03:06
but they are the way sometimes that you get an entree.

03:10
Any advice on resumes?

03:12
So here's a really interesting practice that Google does, and Google looks at more resumes than anyone.

03:16
I mean, they get as many as 75,000 a week.

03:21
So they're hiring, but they're not hiring that fast.

03:24
One of the things they've started doing is reading the resume from the bottom.

03:28
Instead of looking at those lines at the top that go, here's where I went to school, here's my last job.

03:31
They go all the way down to the bottom, and, you know, I was an Eagle Scout.

03:35
I can solve Rubik's Cube in six seconds, and I've solved it jumping out of an airplane as part of a skydive.

03:41
And you go, you know what, we don't need Rubik's Cube solvers, but we do need people who are competitive.

03:46
We need people who want to be the best of the world.

03:47
And people willing to jump out of airplanes.

03:49
Yes, yes.

03:49
If you can jump out of an airplane, have we got a project for you.

03:53
Absolutely.

03:54
And then very briefly, just the idea when you're in a holding pattern about where to go, what to do.

03:59
So the best thing to do is to look at the teaching world, the nonprofit world, the volunteer world.

04:05
And if you can't find a job with, you know, health care and 401k and a six-figure salary,

04:11
Keep involved in that field.

04:12
Go teach at the community college.

04:14
They always need adjunct people.

04:15
The pay is miserable, but you know what?

04:17
You're in the field, and when people are wanting to hire, who's the first person they talk to?

04:22
The instructor.

04:23
They want to see if they can hire you.

04:24
It's a great way to get back in.

04:26
George Anders has written,

04:27
The Rare Find spotting exceptional talent before everyone else.

04:30
Thank you for some fabulous advice.

04:32
We much appreciate it.

04:33
And Marty Nisbell, now I understand why I never got that call back from Google.

04:36
75,000 resumes.

04:38
Wow.

04:40
Competition.

04:40
He's about 69,000.