How to Hire Low Experience, High Potential People

Tara Seshan worktopia.substack.com

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People who don’t take themselves too seriously. They have to be able to laugh at themselves to succeed.

What to look for: This is usually very easy to assess, but look for someone unpretentious and a pleasure to be around.

What to ask: You know it when you see it.

Tara Seshan • How to Hire Low Experience, High Potential People

Brandy Cerne

Openness. You are not hiring a finished product, and therefore want to ensure the person is open to improvement and new ideas.

What to look for:
1. Coachability: This trait has two aspects: responding well to feedback, and being self-aware enough to assess their own performance.
2. Disagree and commit: Can they get out of their own ego and move forwa

Tara Seshan • How to Hire Low Experience, High Potential People

Brandy Cerne

Theory for excellence. "Excellence" is a surprisingly generalizable skill. People who've been great at *anything* are more likely to have the drive and self-discipline to excel even at something unrelated. In 2015, we hired a number of ex-Juilliard musicians with no engineering experience with the assumption that “people who know how to be meticul

Tara Seshan • How to Hire Low Experience, High Potential People

Brandy Cerne

High EQ + Persuasion. People who have a clear-headed view of a situation, and the soft skills/influence chops to bend the environment to their will, are especially valuable. It’s an underrated skill.
1. What to look for:

Tara Seshan • How to Hire Low Experience, High Potential People

Brandy Cerne

Determine if they have a chip on their shoulder . Do they have something to prove? Where’s the hole they’re looking to fill? Ideally, you’d get someone with obvious talent/drive that is misunderstood by the world. Those types of people will run through walls to reconcile their internal view of themselves with external perception.

What you’re look

Tara Seshan • How to Hire Low Experience, High Potential People

Brandy Cerne

Navigate the world on their own terms. The best high potential youth are often unconventional in some ways. And if you’re looking for someone unconventional and high potential, they’ll often have a rationale for their unconventional approach. Ideally they can describe their weird path in an internally coherent way without being egotistical or defe

Tara Seshan • How to Hire Low Experience, High Potential People

Brandy Cerne

Find out their wins above replacement. Through the stories they tell, look to see if the end result of the thing they did would have been significantly worse without their involvement. Try to separate their actions from those of their team or the circumstance. This quality should both highlight their talents and their sense of agency and individua

Tara Seshan • How to Hire Low Experience, High Potential People

Brandy Cerne