回首过去，我们发现，最严重的错误往往也是最不可思议的错误。例如，四家不同的图书出版商都曾拒绝出版J•K•罗琳哈里波特系列小说的第一部。当时，所有人都觉得，一个少年巫师和他的朋友们的冒险故事根本不值得支付5,000美元的预付款。现在看来，当时的人们真是太没眼光了！

    普利策奖得主、华尔街日报（The Wall Street Journal）编辑，也是本文这本新书的作者乔治•安德斯宣称， 大部分公司总是犯相似的错误。在他的新书《稀有的发现：抢占先机，锁定人才》 （The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else）中，安德斯为读者分析了最成功的企业挑选“千里马”的秘诀。

    的确有这样一群人：他们将自己包装得光鲜亮丽，但实际表现却差强人意。对于曾经和这样的人人共事的人来说，安德斯所阐述的观点也许并无新意。

    安德斯说，相对于一味死板地根据各种证书来评判求职者，招聘经理应该将重点放在真正的岗位需求上，更多关注从业经历坎坷的求职简历。

    有些人的简历表明求职者“曾一度徘徊在成功与失败之间”，他写道。这样的人往往“在特定的环境下可以超常发挥，而此时，他们的优点会将缺点完全掩盖。”

    让我们看看Facebook工程师埃文•普利斯特里的传奇故事。他辍学以前曾三次调换所修专业，后来又到位于缅因州波特兰市的一家小公司从事初级网页设计工作。直到2007年，他偶然看到Facebook发布在互联网上的一个程序难题。普利斯特里提出的解决方法堪称绝妙，Facebook为此向他伸出了橄榄枝——提供免费机票，邀请他飞往帕洛阿尔托参加面试。最终，他凭借高超的技术征服了所有人。

    Facebook最终聘请了他，后来发生的事则是另一段佳话：普利斯特里带领程序员团队实现了Facebook网站架构的提速，使用户能更加方便地添加游戏、地图等应用程序。

    有一次，一小部分用户无法正常使用Facebook网站，原因是一个功能界定不清且过时的安全程序阻碍了网站的正常运行；而唯一公开的可用指南居然是用丹麦语编写的。但对于普利斯特里来说，这根本不是问题！他居然和一位同事通宵突击丹麦语，掌握了诸如foutmelding（错误的）和beveilaging（安全）这类术语，最终将问题成功化解。

    重点在于：如果招聘经理只关注普利斯特里平淡无奇的简历，他恐怕永远也没有机会迈入Facebook的大门。

    本书囊括的案例来源非常丰富，包括美国联邦调查局（FBI），美国国家篮球协会（NBA）和通用电气（GE），也有来自安然公司的反面教材。对受挫于使用传统方法无法挖掘到意外之“才”的招聘经理们来说，这些实例将会发人深省。《稀有的发现》一书本身就是一个“稀有的发现”：一本能给读者带来阅读乐趣的商业著作。

    译者：富来细特\汪皓

    In retrospect, the biggest blunders often seem inexplicable. Four different book publishers, for instance, passed on J.K. Rowling's first Harry Potter novel. A weird story about the adventures of a juvenile wizard and his friends just didn't seem worth a $5,000 advance. Oops.

    According to author George Anders, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor at The Wall Street Journal, most big companies make comparable mistakes all the time. For a new book, The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else, Anders set out to analyze how some of the most successful enterprises choose extraordinary new hires.

    What he found will come as no surprise to anyone who has worked with someone who looked good on paper but turned out to be less than stellar in action.

    Instead of insisting on a rigid set of credentials, Anders says, hiring managers ought to focus on what the job really requires and give a fair shot to candidates whose resumes may be what Anders calls "jagged," or full of ups and downs.

    Someone whose background "appears to teeter on the edge between success and failure," he writes, can do "spectacular work in the right settings, where their strengths dramatically outweigh their flaws."

    Consider, for example, legendary Facebook engineer Evan Priestley. He had changed his college major three times before dropping out altogether, and was working as a low-level web designer at a small firm in Portland, Me., when, in 2007, he happened to come across a programming puzzle that Facebook had put out over the Internet. Priestley's solution was so elegant that Facebook flew him to Palo Alto for an interview, where he impressed everyone with his skills.

    Facebook hired him, and the rest is legend: Priestley led a team of programmers that sped up Facebook's infrastructure and made it easier to add games, maps, and other applications.

    At one point, Facebook's site stopped working for a small group of users who, it turned out, were hampered by an obscure, out-of-date security program. The only publicly available manual was written in Danish. No problem! Priestley and a coworker stayed up all night learning enough Danish -- mastering terms like foutmelding and beveilaging -- to untangle the trouble.

    The point: If hiring managers had considered only Priestley's lackluster resume, he'd never have gotten a foot in the door.

    Drawing on other case studies from organizations as diverse as the FBI, the National Basketball Association, General Electric (GE), and (a cautionary tale) Enron, this is thought-provoking stuff for anybody who's frustrated with trying to find exceptional talent using the same, tired old methods. The Rare Find is also a rare find in itself: A business book that is actually fun to read.