In early 2005, Todd Carlisle began an experiment. He listed 20 factors that might distinguish between hiring great employees and picking the wrong people. His early guesses focused on mainstream metrics, such as education and work history. Then he began asking executives: "What else would you add?"
Carlisle's list became bigger – and weirder. He didn't mind. Every idea had potential, even the offbeat suggestions to keep track of who was an Eagle Scout [an American Boy Scout], or who had set national records in solving Rubik's Cube. Carlisle was a human sponge, soaking up every question he heard. The more the list grew, the more it intrigued people.
Nobody important had commissioned this project. Carlisle was a 30-year-old newcomer at a top company, with the hazy title of 'staffing programs manager'. As the researcher kept making his rounds, powerful people started cheering for him. One of the company's billionaire cofounders wanted to help. He had emigrated from Russia to the US at age six. Three years later, he was tinkering with a Commodore personal computer. Had gifted employees discovered computers at a young age? That was worth researching, too.
Eventually, Carlisle's list topped out at 300 factors. It was time to test all the theories. Because Carlisle worked at Google, one of the planet's most data-centric organisations, it was easy to canvass the workforce online. Within a few months, 5,000 employees' habits and accomplishments were matched against their performance ratings.
Carlisle's answers made him famous within Silicon Valley. On the question of childhood familiarity with computers, Google co-founder Sergey Brin turned out to be right. Early adopters of technology tended to be unusually creative adults. Being a Scout, alas, had no lasting payoff. When the number crunching was done, several dozen factors emerged as ones that could help predict candidates' chances.
"Take the wide view" became Carlisle's overriding lesson. Instead of fixating on' academic achievements, Google gained a new appreciation for people whose marks had faltered because they were working 30 hours a week to pay for university. Google also came to prize highly competitive people who had chased an athletic dream or run a business when younger – and now were applying that relentless energy to career goals.
It was in a bid to spot these hidden winners, that Carlisle developed his technique of analysing a CV 'upside down'. He might go on to scroll back to the top and start hunting for classic markers of competence: work history, education, credentials and the like. But first, Carlisle wanted to see if some rare attribute could point the way to greatness.
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