There are so many problems / on how talent evaluation / is done today. // In larger corporations, / the problem tends to be / too much bureaucratization. / Too many / boring interview processes / that just make everyone / a little bit numb. // The interviewer goes through / some rehearsed questions. / The interviewee / goes through some rehearsed answers. / Everyone knows / it's a bit phony. / Neither side / really / learns that much. / But I think that's also / just the beginning / of the mistakes / we're making. // One problem / is that people, / when hiring, / they're too prone to hire / other people / like themselves. / Those are virtues / they find / relatively easy / to detect. // Think about / the role of intelligence / in the hiring process. / For people / who are highly intelligent, / highly skilled, / the evidence is that they are / overrating / intelligence. / For any kind of job /, there might be some basic, / minimum level of intelligence / that would be required. // But when you look / above that level, / it's remarkable how weak / is the correlation / between success / and intelligence. / There are other factors / such as / drive and determination, / energy levels, / how well you work with other people, / leadership skills, / charisma- / all of those can be more / important than intelligence. // So I wouldn't say that everyone / overrates intelligence /, but it's the smart people who do, / and that's exactly the problem. // If you're hiring people, / you're also looking for people who are undervalued / by the rest of the market. / The way / you really / do well / is by finding / undervalued talents / where the rest of the market / is not seeing / something. / It could be / the market doesn't / understand fully how talent works. / It could be a case of prejudice. / There can be issues / across race. / There can be / qualities that might appear negative, / like neuroticism, / but actually / for a lot of jobs, neuroticism / is a good thing. / For your own success, / focus not only on talent / at the absolute level, / but focus on / which talents are the truly undervalued ones. // I think another area / where you find major biases / is gender in the workplace. / For instance, / there is good evidence / that very smart men tend to underrate / how smart / the very smartest women are. // In most cases, / I don't think it's explicit / prejudice or chauvinism, / though there is some of that. / Men, / when they interview women, / at least on average, / they tend to put too much weight / on how they perceive / the woman's personality. / Whether they individually find it pleasant or agreeable. / That / might matter for the job, / but you know, / very, very often it doesn't. / I think by / being more open / and just trying to look past / some of your immediate emotional reactions, / you can make better decisions.