Recruiting and Hiring Advice

Recruiting and Hiring Advice

1) Resilience: Is the candidate seek opportunity in adversity? able to In an increasingly complex business environment that throws all kinds of challenges at companies, demonstrating resilience in the face of adversity and turning it to one’s advantage is a competence that US firms must urgently develop.

2) Frugality: Can the candidate do more with less? 

    Frugal consumers and cost-effective competitors are rewriting the rules of engagement for companies -- pressing them to develop goods and services that are affordable and eco-friendly.

To compete and win in this resource-scarce environment, firms need imaginative employees who can deliver more value using fewer resources.

3) Flexibility: Is the candidate able to think and act flexibly in response to unpredictable outcomes? 

To thrive in a highly-unpredictable environment, companies need employees who are masters of flexibility.

HR managers must check the ability of new hires to challenge conventional thinking, who can think on their feet.

4) Simplicity: Can the candidate keep things simple without losing sight of complexity? Tired of complexity, consumers are pressing companies to simplify their products and services to make them more accessible.

As a result, firms must look to hire R&D engineers who can design “good enough” but user-friendly products rather than over-engineered products that are too complex to use.

Similarly, they need to hire marketing managers who are able to simplify their customer interactions to deliver a superior user experience.

5) Empathy: Does the candidate have the empathy to include marginal (and marginalized) customers? The American middle class has shrunk significantly, and lower income consumers in the US should not be ignored. 

Many companies try to convince these marginalized consumers to see the value of their existing products. But these customers have unique needs -- serving their needs requires whole new products, different marketing strategies and new business models.

6) Passion: Can the candidate follow the heart rather than just the mind? As Dan Pink argues in A Whole New Mind, the left-brain’s linear, analytical, computer-like thinking -- controlled by what we call our ‘‘mind’’-- is insufficient to help us decipher, let alone navigate, our increasingly complex and ambiguous world.