Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Dan Rosensweig, president and chief executive of Chegg: [Chegg rents textbooks online and by mail.]: Remember to Thank Your Star Players:
"Q. Let’s talk about hiring. What do you look for? What questions do you ask?
A. By the time they get to me, they’ve been vetted in enough ways that I know functionally they should be able to do the job. So I spend a lot of my time doing two things. I ask them very few questions, mostly around, how do they approach a situation? How do they personally define success for themselves? What do they want for this company? What attracts them here? What do they need to be successful? How do they want to be managed? And then a lot of the conversation stems from there.
And then I really turn it over to them and say: What questions do you have? What do you think you need to know to decide whether this is the right environment for you? Whether we can utilize the talents you bring to bear? Whether we are the right place at this moment in your career? And that dialogue generally leads to a really great outcome.
Q. What are the most important qualities you’re looking for?
A. One is attitude. Some people spend a lot of time focusing on how difficult things are. You don’t get jobs like these unless the situations are difficult. So I like to hear people talk about how they love to approach a challenge, and that’s the thing that gets them excited.
I’m also looking for people who appreciate the fact that the definition of success is the company and not an individual. I’m looking for people who can communicate. I mean, quite frankly, most of the things that break down when you are running a business are transparency and communication. If you have people who are reluctant to share information with their peers, particularly in a very small company, it’s not a healthy dynamic.
And I look for people who generally, as I said earlier, think big, want to achieve big, aren’t afraid. They have that level of humility to know it’s entirely possible we may not succeed, but, man, it’s worth trying.
Q. And if you could ask somebody only one or two questions in a job interview, what would you ask?
A. What matters to you in your professional career in the next five years? And the second would be, what do you think you need to be successful in that goal?
Q. What about feedback? What’s your approach to difficult conversations?
A. I have found in my career that once you know that someone isn’t doing the things that they need to do or they are not going to be successful, then every day you wait it’s really your fault rather than theirs. And the first thing I ask is, did I ask somebody to do something that they weren’t capable of doing?
There’s nothing worse than somebody you like and respect doing something you know they can’t be successful in and knowing that you were the one that did that to them. I try very hard to understand, before I approach the person, why they may not be successful in that particular role. Because, normally, the people I work with have been extremely successful in their careers, so the expectation is that they are going to be successful.
But the longer you wait, the worse it gets. Very few problems correct themselves. And the philosophy of sticking your head in the sand and hoping it goes away has never been that effective for me. So you sit down and have an honest conversation. I think people respect honesty without attitude.
Q. And what about getting feedback?
A. I ask employees, “If you had my job, other than giving yourself more vacation and a raise, what’s the first thing that you would do that you don’t think we’re doing yet?” I try to make it comfortable when you do the review process by asking people: What do you need more of from me? What do you need less of from me? What is it that I’m doing that you would like me to stop doing completely? And what is it that I’m not doing enough of that you’d like some more of? From there, it becomes a much more comfortable conversation."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/business/11corner.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
No comments:
Post a Comment