I’ve been having disagreements for years about the usefulness of college degrees as a measure of someone’s ability to be an outstanding employee. Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing to have a degree. I just think people make an assumption about formal education that’s often untrue. They assume that if two people are exactly the same in terms of age, life and job experience and demographics, and one has a college degree and the other doesn’t – that the one who has the degree will be a better employee and have a more successful career.
多年来，对于将大学文凭作为一些人是否能够成为优秀员工的衡量标准一事，我一直持有不同意见。但不要误会我的意思——我不认为获得学位会是件坏事。我只是认为，人们就正规教育作出的假设往往与真实不符。他们假设，如果两个人的年龄大致相仿，且无论生活与工作经历还是背景出身都类似，但其中一人拥有大学文凭，另一人则没有，那么拥有大学文凭的那个人将成为一位更加优秀的员工，并会在事业上取得更多成功。
So I was thrilled to read an article by Thomas L. Friedman in the NYT a few months ago, called “How To Get A Job At Google.” Friedman’s article expands upon an interview between Adam Bryant of the NYT and Lazlo Bock, SVP of People Operations for Google , where Bock goes into depth about the core attributes Google looks for when hiring. At one point, Bock says, “G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. … We found that they don’t predict anything.”
所以，几个月前，我怀着兴奋的心情拜读了托马斯·弗里德曼（Thomas L. Friedman）在《纽约时报》撰写的一篇题为“如何在谷歌（Google）找到一份工作”的文章。弗里德曼的文章在《纽约时报》亚当·布莱恩特（Adam Bryant）对谷歌人事高级副总裁拉兹洛·波克（Lazlo Bock）的采访基础上进行了扩充。在此采访中，波克深入介绍了谷歌在招募人才时所寻找的核心特征。波克一度表示，“作为招聘的标准，总平均成绩（GPA）和测试成绩都毫无价值……我们发现它们并不能说明任何问题。”
My point exactly. Someone can do very well in college and not have what it takes to succeed in the real world – and vice versa. Bock went on to say that an increasing proportion of people hired at Google these days don’t have college degrees. Bock then shared the five criteria Google does use when evaluating job candidates. I was struck not only by the list, but by the order. Here’s my understanding of what he said, and why it’s important for any job seeker:
这与我的观点一拍即合。有些人在大学表现得非常出色，但在现实世界中却很难获得成功——反之亦然。波克接着说，在谷歌近期招聘的新职员中，没有大学文凭的人越来越多。之后，波克分享了谷歌在评估应聘者时采用的五项标准。让我惊讶的不仅仅是他们提供的这些标准本身，还有这五项标准的先后顺序。以下是我对他的言论的解读，以及这对求职者至关重要的原因：
5. Expertise. Bock noted that, except for making sure that people in technical jobs having coding ability, expertise is last on their list of five. They’ve found that the other four attributes (which I’ll get to in a minute) far outweigh expertise when it comes to predicting the abilities that Google has found they need in their employees. Bock notes that experts are more likely to simply default to the tried-and-true. I’ve seen this as well – when people self-identify as “expert” in an area, or as “highly experienced,” there’s a much higher likelihood that they will strongly defend their existing point of view when questioned, rather than being curious…their identity is all too often wrapped up in being the authority, vs. finding a better solution.
第五标准：专业知识。波克指出，除了确保科技工作者拥有编程能力之外，专业知识在五项核心特征排名中垫底。至于哪些因素能预测谷歌需要从其员工身上获得的能力，他们已经发现，其他四个特征要比专业知识远远更加重要。波克指出，专家们更有可能简单地选择墨守成规。我也体会到了这一点——当人们自认为是一个领域的“专家”或者“经验丰富人士”时，他们很有可能在受到质疑时坚决捍卫自己已有的观点，而不是充满好奇心……他们往往被“充当权威”的目的所蒙蔽，而没有将寻找更好的解决方案作为目标。
4. Ownership. At Google, they look for people who take responsibility for solving problems and moving the enterprise forward – who feel passionate about making things work. I see the importance of this in my own company and in all of our client companies. In this era of daily change and upheaval in almost every industry and area of knowledge, it’s a huge disadvantage to have employees who are passive doers of tasks and order-takers. You need people who are internally motivated to figure out how to make things better.
第四标准：主人翁意识。在谷歌，人们寻找对解决问题并推动这家企业向前发展负责的职员，即对解决问题充满热情的一群人。无论是在我的公司，还是所有客户的公司，我都看到了它的重要性。在这个几乎所有行业和知识领域每天都会发生巨大变化的时代，拥有不积极完成任务或只被动接受指令的员工，会使公司处在非常不利的地位。你需要一群从内心真正想要更加出色完成工作的职工。
3. Humility. At the same time, Bock notes that passion and drive toward responsibility has to be balanced by humility: an openness to someone else having an even better idea than you, or knowing more about how to make something work. In Bock’s words: “You need a big ego and small ego in the same person at the same time.” I’ve noticed that when someone has both these qualities – a fierce drive to make things better combined with a welcoming attitude, an assumption that others have as much to offer, or more – that person tends to be both enormously effective individually and a wonderfully useful member of any team.
第三标准：谦逊。波克同时还指出，热情和承担责任的动力需要用谦逊加以平衡：当别人的点子比你更加完美，或者办事比你更加在行时候，就要抱以接受的心态。用波克的话说，“你需要同一个人身上同时展现出一个强大的自我和一个谦逊的自我。”我注意到，当一些人具备这两种特质的时候——强大的上进心，再加之友好的态度，认为其他人总能提出很好的意见——这样的人往往在单独工作时极为高效，同时在任何团队中都能发光发热。
2. Leadership. I love that Bock and his colleagues look for leadership at every level. And not, as he says, a traditional evaluation of leadership as in, “…were you president of the chess club? Were you vice president of sales? How quickly did you get there?” They’re looking for folks who can step in to guide and influence others toward an outcome when that’s what’s needed – no matter what their job or title may be. (And who also know – back to the humility criterion – when to step back and let someone else take that role. )
第二标准：领导力。波克和他的同事们在各个层面都不忘寻找领导力，这一点我很赞赏。而且正如他所说，他们采用的还不是对领导力的传统评估方法，比如“……你是国际象棋社的社长吗？你是销售副总裁吗？你的升值用了多长时间？”他们寻找的是能够在必要的时候挺身而出，指导并影响其他人取得成果的人——无论他们的头衔是什么（回到谦逊这一标准，这些人也该知道何时该置身事外，让其他人担当起某个角色）。
1. Ability to Learn. This is where I decided that Lazlo Bock and I are kindred souls; he notes that pure learning ability – the ability to pick up new things, to learn on the fly, to find patterns in disparate pieces of information and take the next step – is the number one thing hiring managers at Google have learned to look for in candidates. I could not agree more: I believe that people will succeed in today’s world to the extent they develop the ability to learn new things quickly and well. And that’s not only true in companies like Google or LinkedIn or Amazon, companies that pride themselves on coming up with new ideas and new approaches on a daily basis. Every company needs employees who are curious, who are willing to make mistakes and go out on a limb and ask dumb questions in order to develop new capabilities and new solutions – that’s how organizations will thrive and grow into the future.
第一标准：学习的能力。正是这一点让我觉得我和拉兹洛·波克英雄所见略同；他指出，纯粹的学习能力——撷取新鲜事物，随时随地学习，在分散的信息中发现规律并迈出下一步——是谷歌招聘经理们学到的应该在求职者身上找寻的最重要的标准。我完全同意：我认为，人们在当今世界中能够取得的成功，取决于他们能在多大程度上培养出又快又好地学习新鲜事物的能力。这不仅仅适用于谷歌或者LinkedIn，又或者亚马逊——那些以每日都提出新想法和新方案为豪的公司，实际上，所有的公司都需要这样的员工——充满好奇心，愿意犯错、冒险并提出愚蠢问题以开发新能力、找出新的解决方案——这正是企业实现未来茁壮成长之道。
In the very wise and prescient words of Ari De Geus (he said this in the mid 90s): “The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”
用当代管理大师阿里·德赫斯（Arie de Geus）一句非常具有远见卓识的话说，“比你的竞争对手更快学习的能力或许是唯一可持续的竞争优势。”