Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; Valuing Those Who Tell You the Bitter Truth: Interview with Pamela Fields, chief executive of Stetson, the hat and apparel company:
"Q. So let’s talk about hiring. What are you looking for?
A. I look for innate intelligence. You hear that by the way people talk, by the way they express themselves, by the level of sophistication of their answers. I ask them to send me a letter after the interview about what they thought about our conversation and what they thought was good, what left them uncomfortable, were there any areas that we didn’t discuss, is there something that they forgot to brag about? A lot of people can’t write anymore. I mean, they would be thrown out of eighth-grade class. In my house, my father learned English as a second language, and if I got an A on a paper and I spelled a word wrong, that’s what I heard about.
I ask them where they think they’ve displayed courage in a job. Where have they stood up and said, “I don’t agree with you”? Sometimes the courage is to recommend pursuing a business, or, “I’d like to go out on my own as a separate division.”
I ask them about momentum killers in their business and what they’ve done to try and fix them.
And some people you just connect with on a chemistry level. It’s an intangible. You have to judge that chemistry with the other chemistry in the group. And a lot of that is a feeling. Does the conversation flow? Is it easy? Do people think before they speak or do they blurt? Do they talk over you or do they listen to you finish?"
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