What Makes Real Talent?

I just heard George Anders speak on his new book, "The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Anyone Else," where he examined what constitutes the best talent, where to look for it, and how leverage it. Everyone wants top talent, but research shows that hiring successfully is sporadic at best. It's hard to hire strangers, and surprisingly harder still to promote from within.

So, what should you look for in people and how can you improve your assessment process?

For one, traditional interview settings rarely tell us much about the person in front of us. In a face-to-face office interview, you can't really determine a person's core, underlying abilities. You can confirm what's on a resume, and explore conceptually specific scenarios, but these aren't complete indicators of what will happen in real life.

That's why, as an example, the Army Special Forces picks their elite forces based on multi-day, high-risk situations - infused with adversity and ambiguity - where candidates have to actually demonstrate how they confront crises, devise solution strategies, and execute successfully with other team members. Trying to solve the unexpected problem is what uncovers the traits the Army is looking for, especially a person's tenacity and resiliency.

When identifying the top high school athletes to recruit, college coaches gather student athletes together for multi-day camps. Some of the best recruiting coaches say it's seeing the athletes over time, in what is essentially an extended audition, that best informs their decision. These coaches pay close attention to the small stuff, i.e. how does a player handle injury, are they there for the team or themselves, are they demonstrating the attitude necessary for team success? These are the insights that provide the decision-making context for success.

But what's really fascinating, is that the most interesting and ultimately successful candidates may have "jagged" resumes - backgrounds where they may not have finished college, may have had several different types of jobs, may have resume time gaps, or may have explored several different fields. So, instead of focusing simply on conventional achievements and a straight/narrow path, it's imperative to look at the "whole" of a background and evaluate how individuals rank in terms of these types of competencies:

• Resiliency
• Efficiency
• Self-reliance
• Desire to improve
• Curiosity
• Creativity
• Ability to influence others without having full control