谷歌招聘新職員的五大標(biāo)準(zhǔn)

谷歌招聘新職員的五大標(biāo)準(zhǔn)

I’ve been having disagreements for years about the usefulness of college degrees as a measure of someone’s ability to be an outstanding employee. Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing to have a degree. I just think people make an assumption about formal education that’s often untrue. They assume that if two people are exactly the same in terms of age, life and job experience and demographics, and one has a college degree and the other doesn’t – that the one who has the degree will be a better employee and have a more successful career.

多年來，對于將大學(xué)文憑作為一些人是否能夠成為優(yōu)秀員工的衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)一事，我一直持有不同意見。但不要誤會我的意思——我不認(rèn)為獲得學(xué)位會是件壞事。我只是認(rèn)為，人們就正規(guī)教育作出的假設(shè)往往與真實不符。他們假設(shè)，如果兩個人的年齡大致相仿，且無論生活與工作經(jīng)歷還是背景出身都類似，但其中一人擁有大學(xué)文憑，另一人則沒有，那么擁有大學(xué)文憑的那個人將成為一位更加優(yōu)秀的員工，并會在事業(yè)上取得更多成功。

So I was thrilled to read an article by Thomas L. Friedman in the NYT a few months ago, called “How To Get A Job At Google.” Friedman’s article expands upon an interview between Adam Bryant of the NYT and Lazlo Bock, SVP of People Operations for Google , where Bock goes into depth about the core attributes Google looks for when hiring. At one point, Bock says, “G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. … We found that they don’t predict anything.”

所以，幾個月前，我懷著興奮的心情拜讀了托馬斯·弗里德曼(Thomas L. Friedman)在《紐約時報》撰寫的一篇題為“如何在谷歌(Google)找到一份工作”的文章。弗里德曼的文章在《紐約時報》亞當(dāng)·布萊恩特(Adam Bryant)對谷歌人事高級副總裁拉茲洛·波克(Lazlo Bock)的采訪基礎(chǔ)上進(jìn)行了擴充。在此采訪中，波克深入介紹了谷歌在招募人才時所尋找的核心特征。波克一度表示，“作為招聘的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，總平均成績(GPA)和測試成績都毫無價值……我們發(fā)現(xiàn)它們并不能說明任何問題。”

My point exactly. Someone can do very well in college and not have what it takes to succeed in the real world – and vice versa. Bock went on to say that an increasing proportion of people hired at Google these days don’t have college degrees. Bock then shared the five criteria Google does use when evaluating job candidates. I was struck not only by the list, but by the order. Here’s my understanding of what he said, and why it’s important for any job seeker:

這與我的觀點一拍即合。有些人在大學(xué)表現(xiàn)得非常出色，但在現(xiàn)實世界中卻很難獲得成功——反之亦然。波克接著說，在谷歌近期招聘的新職員中，沒有大學(xué)文憑的人越來越多。之后，波克分享了谷歌在評估應(yīng)聘者時采用的五項標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。讓我驚訝的不僅僅是他們提供的這些標(biāo)準(zhǔn)本身，還有這五項標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的先后順序。以下是我對他的言論的解讀，以及這對求職者至關(guān)重要的原因：

5. Expertise. Bock noted that, except for making sure that people in technical jobs having coding ability, expertise is last on their list of five. They’ve found that the other four attributes (which I’ll get to in a minute) far outweigh expertise when it comes to predicting the abilities that Google has found they need in their employees. Bock notes that experts are more likely to simply default to the tried-and-true. I’ve seen this as well – when people self-identify as “expert” in an area, or as “highly experienced,” there’s a much higher likelihood that they will strongly defend their existing point of view when questioned, rather than being curious…their identity is all too often wrapped up in being the authority, vs. finding a better solution.

第五標(biāo)準(zhǔn)：專業(yè)知識。波克指出，除了確?？萍脊ぷ髡邠碛芯幊棠芰χ?，專業(yè)知識在五項核心特征排名中墊底。至于哪些因素能預(yù)測谷歌需要從其員工身上獲得的能力，他們已經(jīng)發(fā)現(xiàn)，其他四個特征要比專業(yè)知識遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)更加重要。波克指出，專家們更有可能簡單地選擇墨守成規(guī)。我也體會到了這一點——當(dāng)人們自認(rèn)為是一個領(lǐng)域的“專家”或者“經(jīng)驗豐富人士”時，他們很有可能在受到質(zhì)疑時堅決捍衛(wèi)自己已有的觀點，而不是充滿好奇心……他們往往被“充當(dāng)權(quán)威”的目的所蒙蔽，而沒有將尋找更好的解決方案作為目標(biāo)。

4. Ownership. At Google, they look for people who take responsibility for solving problems and moving the enterprise forward – who feel passionate about making things work. I see the importance of this in my own company and in all of our client companies. In this era of daily change and upheaval in almost every industry and area of knowledge, it’s a huge disadvantage to have employees who are passive doers of tasks and order-takers. You need people who are internally motivated to figure out how to make things better.

第四標(biāo)準(zhǔn)：主人翁意識。在谷歌，人們尋找對解決問題并推動這家企業(yè)向前發(fā)展負(fù)責(zé)的職員，即對解決問題充滿熱情的一群人。無論是在我的公司，還是所有客戶的公司，我都看到了它的重要性。在這個幾乎所有行業(yè)和知識領(lǐng)域每天都會發(fā)生巨大變化的時代，擁有不積極完成任務(wù)或只被動接受指令的員工，會使公司處在非常不利的地位。你需要一群從內(nèi)心真正想要更加出色完成工作的職工。

3. Humility. At the same time, Bock notes that passion and drive toward responsibility has to be balanced by humility: an openness to someone else having an even better idea than you, or knowing more about how to make something work. In Bock’s words: “You need a big ego and small ego in the same person at the same time.” I’ve noticed that when someone has both these qualities – a fierce drive to make things better combined with a welcoming attitude, an assumption that others have as much to offer, or more – that person tends to be both enormously effective individually and a wonderfully useful member of any team.

第三標(biāo)準(zhǔn)：謙遜。波克同時還指出，熱情和承擔(dān)責(zé)任的動力需要用謙遜加以平衡：當(dāng)別人的點子比你更加完美，或者辦事比你更加在行時候，就要抱以接受的心態(tài)。用波克的話說，“你需要同一個人身上同時展現(xiàn)出一個強大的自我和一個謙遜的自我。”我注意到，當(dāng)一些人具備這兩種特質(zhì)的時候——強大的上進(jìn)心，再加之友好的態(tài)度，認(rèn)為其他人總能提出很好的意見——這樣的人往往在單獨工作時極為高效，同時在任何團(tuán)隊中都能發(fā)光發(fā)熱。

2. Leadership. I love that Bock and his colleagues look for leadership at every level. And not, as he says, a traditional evaluation of leadership as in, “…were you president of the chess club? Were you vice president of sales? How quickly did you get there?” They’re looking for folks who can step in to guide and influence others toward an outcome when that’s what’s needed – no matter what their job or title may be. (And who also know – back to the humility criterion – when to step back and let someone else take that role. )

第二標(biāo)準(zhǔn)：領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力。波克和他的同事們在各個層面都不忘尋找領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力，這一點我很贊賞。而且正如他所說，他們采用的還不是對領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力的傳統(tǒng)評估方法，比如“……你是國際象棋社的社長嗎?你是銷售副總裁嗎?你的升值用了多長時間?”他們尋找的是能夠在必要的時候挺身而出，指導(dǎo)并影響其他人取得成果的人——無論他們的頭銜是什么(回到謙遜這一標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，這些人也該知道何時該置身事外，讓其他人擔(dān)當(dāng)起某個角色)。

1. Ability to Learn. This is where I decided that Lazlo Bock and I are kindred souls; he notes that pure learning ability – the ability to pick up new things, to learn on the fly, to find patterns in disparate pieces of information and take the next step – is the number one thing hiring managers at Google have learned to look for in candidates. I could not agree more: I believe that people will succeed in today’s world to the extent they develop the ability to learn new things quickly and well. And that’s not only true in companies like Google or LinkedIn or Amazon, companies that pride themselves on coming up with new ideas and new approaches on a daily basis. Every company needs employees who are curious, who are willing to make mistakes and go out on a limb and ask dumb questions in order to develop new capabilities and new solutions – that’s how organizations will thrive and grow into the future.

第一標(biāo)準(zhǔn)：學(xué)習(xí)的能力。正是這一點讓我覺得我和拉茲洛·波克英雄所見略同;他指出，純粹的學(xué)習(xí)能力——擷取新鮮事物，隨時隨地學(xué)習(xí)，在分散的信息中發(fā)現(xiàn)規(guī)律并邁出下一步——是谷歌招聘經(jīng)理們學(xué)到的應(yīng)該在求職者身上找尋的最重要的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。我完全同意：我認(rèn)為，人們在當(dāng)今世界中能夠取得的成功，取決于他們能在多大程度上培養(yǎng)出又快又好地學(xué)習(xí)新鮮事物的能力。這不僅僅適用于谷歌或者LinkedIn，又或者亞馬遜——那些以每日都提出新想法和新方案為豪的公司，實際上，所有的公司都需要這樣的員工——充滿好奇心，愿意犯錯、冒險并提出愚蠢問題以開發(fā)新能力、找出新的解決方案——這正是企業(yè)實現(xiàn)未來茁壯成長之道。

In the very wise and prescient words of Ari De Geus (he said this in the mid 90s): “The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”

用當(dāng)代管理大師阿里·德赫斯(Arie de Geus)一句非常具有遠(yuǎn)見卓識的話說，“比你的競爭對手更快學(xué)習(xí)的能力或許是唯一可持續(xù)的競爭優(yōu)勢。”