Anne Berkowitch, co-founder and former chief executive of SelectMinds, discussed how her approach to hiring new employees has evolved:

I started out recruiting for skills that I knew I didn’t have and I didn’t understand intuitively. I was putting way too much emphasis on skills and background and what I could see on paper.

I wasn’t trusting myself to evaluate whether these were the right people. I’d say I went through a spate where I made the wrong hires. Then I said, “I have to do this differently, and I’m just going to trust my instinct about the right kind of person to bring onto this team.” I had to hire people who had skills and experience I needed, but who they were as a person played a much bigger role in what I looked for. The people I want to hire share a number of characteristics. They’re smart. They’re problem solvers. They’re good at what they do. They are honest with themselves, which to me is extremely important. If you’re not honest with yourself, then too much of your energy goes toward managing what you’re saying to everybody else, rather than what you should be doing. They are curious and they want to do things outside their comfort zone. They’re passionate—it doesn’t matter about what. It could be about theater. It could be about your kids. The other quality is they’re people who want to be part of a group to build something. They’re not looking for title.

They’re really motivated by coming on board. At this point, I feel like I could talk to somebody for five minutes and have a good sense of whether they have those qualities, and I’ll be right 85 percent of the time.34 A. Explain what you think Berkowitch means when she says she started prioritizing hiring employees for “who they were as a person” more so than by their skills and experience?

B. What attributes does she look for in particular when hiring new employees? Are these attributes that you can demonstrate on paper? Explain.

C. She says she can judge whether a person fits her company within five minutes. Do you believe that hiring managers can do this reliably? Assuming that you have only five minutes to demonstrate your value to a hiring manager, what would you want to stand out about yourself?