In case you missed this HBR article earlier in the year, the authors do a nice job of outlining 7 science-based recommendations to help update an organization’s hiring tactics and develop a better talent pipeline. A thesis of the article is that great managers and leaders are also great “talent agents”- where they detect talent before others see it (both internally and externally). However, to become an effective talent agent it requires leaders to be more open-minded and abandon outdated, but popular, selection and placement assumptions. For example, many still look for talent in the same old (wrong) places or follow the popular trend of thinking the “best hire” is the “best culture fit”, or have a preconceived notion of what experience a candidate must have. Aside from this approach undermining efforts to boost diversity (demographically, experiential, and thinking styles) it may also exclude talented team members within an organization’s own internal talent market–where a “non-obvious” candidate can become a top performer in a role.
