Speaking in Paris last December Marissa Mayer of Google said
“I like to hire people who have two traits. They’re smart, and they get things done.”
Good simple advice.
But it’s not always easy to tell in an interview who can get things done. Asking about achievements is the classic way of doing it, but it’s all to easy to claim credit for other people’s achievements. Detecting a natural bias for achievement is a tricky proposition. Plenty of people start projects, sometimes many projects, and finish little.
Someone else has said, slightly dispiritedly, “I can hire people to do anything except two things: the first is to think, and the second is to do things in the order of their importance!”
Any ideas on identifying achievers?
