Great Talent Isn’t Hard To Find

Most people focus on where to look when finding top talent. But what if the real key is how we look? In The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else, author George Anders argues that finding great talent isn’t difficult if we shift our approach.

I first learned about Anders’ book not by chance but through a friend in the search industry, Lars Leafblad, who shared his notes with me. Lars and I have often discussed refining and improving the hiring process to make better hiring decisions.

One of Lars’ suggestions was to see a candidate’s resume as a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story, probing deeply into career transitions. “What options have the candidate considered at each point? Why did they make the choices they did?” he explains that these decisions often reveal a candidate’s motivations and adaptability.

In The Rare Find, Anders introduces Todd Carlisle, Google’s Director of Staffing, who redefined resume reading at the company. Tasked with sifting through 75,000 resumes a week, Carlisle realized the traditional method wasn’t enough. He literally flipped the process, earning the nickname “the man who reads resumes upside-down.” Instead of starting at the top, he scrolls to the bottom, examining the “loose ends” in candidates’ stories to understand their personalities, motivations, and growth over time.

This might be a new approach for many, focusing on a candidate’s passions, interests, and personal achievements rather than strictly education and work experience. Lars and Carlisle both emphasize the value of exploring these often-overlooked “long tail” sections of resumes. Do you spend time on these details during interviews?

Anders argues that these peripheral details can be central to understanding a candidate’s potential and fit for a role. We’ve all had interviews where we felt truly understood and others where our unique traits went unnoticed. Anders notes that despite the advances in recruitment technology, our ability to spot exceptional talent is declining. In a Harvard Business Review blog on talent-management challenges, Anders cites talent consultant Marc Effron, whose recent survey highlighted how common this problem has become.

So, what do you think? Has technology helped or hindered your ability to find “the rare find”? Or is intuition still our best tool?