What Do We Need Beyond Talent?
Companies focus on getting great talent in China. That is reasonable. However, let’s think about what is beyond talent, and you need a lot.
You need honesty, dependability, positive attitude, teachability, transparency, passion, ownership, initiative, inspiration, courage, wisdom, empathy, decisiveness, openness, and conflict capability to name a few.
It is actually these unseen things that make or break the hire in almost all cases.
Yet, who can dig out these things and know the candidate this well?
How Do We Get Beyond Talent?
It takes time, patience, curiosity and high emotional quotient to get there. It further takes a careful China focused rigorous recruiting process.
In truth, if you try to interview for each one of the items listed above, you will be in trouble. We would have trouble to though we do keep all of them in mind.
We have found that teachability is the king and is lacking in China as much as initiative is. If people are ready to learn, then all gaps can be filled. Unfortunately, many people are full of themselves and not too open. In China, many Chinese managers like to say, “This is China.” That may be true, but its shows a lack of teachability to learn other ways. Every Western Company has its own ways in China. Further, ‘know it alls’ are not the right hire for anyone. Teachability in China
Transparency and openness are also indicative of a lot more as well. Teachability will not occur if people cannot be open about their mistakes and gaps. People who have this kind of openness are focused on doing real things rather than being expert politicians. They learn more as are not covering problems but learning every day to really do better instead of make better excuses.
We always dig these out and a couple more that are specific for each company and position. Of course, we also find the right talent at the same time. We know you must have both to make a great hire.