最佳员工的两个相同特征

对于管理者来说，区分好哪些条件是你期望求职者至少应该具备的，而哪些条件是你希望求职者尽可能多具备的，这一点非常重要。

多数情况下，一份工作对于技术能力有最低标准要求。例如，审计员职位的候选人，是否了解毛利润和营业现金流的区别？

幸运的是，现在有一些客观的测试，可用来确定求职者是否具备职位所需的技能。制定合理的达到“充足”条件的门槛，进行测试，然后在达到或超出标准的候选人当中，继续遴选程序。

此后，招聘最看重的应该是两个方面：潜力和契合度。

我并不关心出身，而是看中求职者所表现出来的接受挑战和成长的意愿。我喜欢询问求职者他们进行过尝试但结果并不理想的事情。通过这些问题，你便会清楚谁在流程和实现结果的过程中发挥了主导作用，而不是成为机器上的一个齿轮，谁愿意证明自己愿意承担风险，勇于接受失败，并善于从以往经验中学习。

这些人会发自内心地愿意承担额外的责任，帮助公司发展，而不是每天只专注于完成待办清单里的任务。如果还有疑问，选择那些有抱负并且愿意为实现这一抱负而努力的求职者。领导者的任务就是找出这种潜在的能量，并驾驭这种能量，帮助企业发展。

这样做的关键在于，领导者能否驾驭求职者的抱负，利用它来促进企业成长——他或她将成为一个有凝聚力团队的一份子，而不是一匹独狼。这便涉及到了契合度：与团队共同取得成功的抱负是伟大的；但以团队为垫脚石取得个人成功的抱负却并不伟大。契合度是极其主观的，很难量化，也很难评估。

最好的作法是，确保让尽可能多的团队成员参与面试过程。我特别重视让团队的初级成员在面试过程中发挥关键作用。这样做不仅可以放权，而且在评估求职者契合度时，他们的意见往往是最关键的。

这种做法假设求职者都来自开放的招聘平台。但有时候，这种寻找求职者的方法，效果难免会不够理想。为了尽可能做出最佳的选择，雇主希望尽可能多地了解与求职者有关的历史数据和信息。没有什么能比一个人的历史行为更准确地预测其未来行为。据我观察，我聘用的一些最佳员工，都是在当前职位上“达到峰顶”的人——他们有能力并且有兴趣做更多工作，但却苦于没有机会。

这些才是团队所需要的人：他们愿意为所在的团队做出贡献——愿意为一项高于自身利益的使命而努力。理想情况下，首先，你可以在不同环境下观察求职者的行为，但如果不可行，那些在以往表现出团队意识的求职者可以作为优选对象。再结合求职者对你所在行业或工作的兴趣，你肯定可以得到一个必胜组合。

当然，这并不是说每一次招聘决定都能成功。因为意外总是会发生。一旦出现意外，一定要迅速行动起来，解决问题。有时候可以通过指导来解决问题，否则最好迅速换人。这对员工更为公平，更关键的是，这也有益于团队其他成员。由于领导者愿意容忍慢慢侵蚀团队绩效和影响同事士气的员工，结果毁掉了团队为建立强大战斗力所付出的努力，这样的例子不胜枚举。

同时，也要反思一下公司的招聘程序。不良结果并不总意味着招聘程序存在问题。招聘程序的结果显然是不确定的，但如果你能在招聘程序中融入更多要素，使其在未来变得更加完善，自然是更好的。不能总结历史经验教训的人，注定要重复犯错。

本文作者Tom Schryver是康奈尔大学约翰逊管理研究院创业与创新协会执行理事

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

It’s important to draw a distinction between the things you need at least a minimum amount of and the things you want as much as possible of.

In the majority of cases, there’s a minimum amount of technical skill required for the job. Does a candidate for a controller job understand the difference between gross profit and cash flow from operations?

Fortunately, there are objective tests that you can easily administer to determine whether or not a candidate has the skills to do the job. Set a reasonable bar for what “enough” is, test to that, and continue the selection process with all of the candidates who meet or exceed that standard.

From there, hire to maximize two things: potential and fit.

I care less about pedigree than a demonstrated willingness to take on challenges and grow. I love asking candidates about things they tried that didn’t go well. When you do that, you can understand who took ownership for a process and outcome rather than serving as a cog in a machine, and who is willing to show that they’re willing to take a risk, fail, and learn from the experience.

These tend to be people who will be willing to take on additional responsibility and help grow your organization from within, rather than those focused on managing their daily to-do list to zero. When in doubt, choose the candidate with ambition and a demonstrated willingness to pursue that ambition. Your job as a leader is to find this potential energy and harness it to help grow your enterprise.

The key component of this is whether the candidate’s ambition can be harnessed to grow the enterprise—that he or she will serve as part of a cohesive group rather than a lone wolf. This is where fit comes in: Ambition to succeed with the team is great; ambition to succeed over the team is not. Fit is extremely subjective, hard to quantify, and hard to assess.

A best practice is to ensure that as many members of the team as possible participate in the interview process. I emphasize having junior members of the team as key members of the interview process. Not only does it empower them, but their insights are often the most critical in assessing candidate fit.

This presumes that the candidate pool is coming from an open job posting. While sometimes unavoidable, this method of sourcing candidates is highly suboptimal. To make the best choice possible, you want as much prior exposure and data on the candidate as you can get. There is no better predictor of someone’s future behavior than his or her past behavior. Some of the best hires I’ve made have been of people I’ve observed as being “capped out” in current roles— capable and interested in doing much more, but limited in opportunity to contribute.

These are people you want on your team: those with a desire to contribute to a group to whom they belong—to a purpose greater than themselves. Ideally, this is behavior you can observe in a different context first, but if that’s not possible, lean toward people who have shown that sense of community belonging in their history. Combine this with a genuine interest in your industry or line of work and you have a winning combination.

Of course, that’s not to say that every hiring decision works out. There are often surprises. When this happens, act quickly to address the problem. Sometimes coaching can work, but if it doesn’t, better to move on quickly. It’s fairer to the employee, and, more vitally, it’s better for the rest of the team. Too often, leaders’ willingness to tolerate people who slowly erode the performance and morale of those around them ruins their efforts to build a strong team.

Think about your hiring process, too. A bad outcome does not necessarily mean your process was flawed. Hiring processes are by definition uncertain in their outcome, but if there are things you can incorporate into your process to improve in the future, all the better. Those who don’t learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.