Good To Know: July 2021 🧑💻
A monthly round-up of things happening in hiring, D&I, and humanity.
Hey Everyone,
Welcome to Good to Know! If you just signed up, I publish Good to Know on the last Tuesday of every month. Unlike most posts, Good to Know is a round-up of things going on in hiring, D&I, and humanity with some of my comments. Its purpose is to showcase some of the great work that others are doing and what we can learn from it. We’ll be back to our normal posting schedule next week.
Let’s get to it!
Gucci's Unveils “Virtual Store Assessment”1
Gucci created a “mobile-first and gamified activity” that helps them evaluate Client Advisory Role applicants.2
There is lots to love with Gucci’s approach. For one, they look primarily for the behaviors they know make their hires successful:
…since we measure behaviors and not specific knowledge, we are also able to identify a wide range of talents….
This ensures that the behaviors we measure are linked to high-performing, successful behaviors in our Gucci stores.
In other words, Gucci doesn’t care what you know. They care who you are and if you fit the behavioral qualities of people who are already successful at Gucci.
“Technology Saves The World” Misses Something
Internet hero Marc Andreessen wrote Technology Saves the World, where he argues that technology deserves much of the credit for everything good coming out of the COVID pandemic. Cool, but here’s the passage that jumped out at me:
Permanently divorcing physical location from economic opportunity gives us a real shot at radically expanding the number of good jobs in the world while also dramatically improving quality of life for millions, or billions, of people. We may, at long last, shatter the geographic lottery, opening up opportunity to countless people who weren’t lucky enough to be born in the right place. And people are leaping at the opportunities this shift is already creating, moving both homes and jobs at furious rates.
I’m as optimistic as Andreessen is. But he’s making a big assumption: that humans are able and willing to evaluate all people fairly. Overcoming cultural biases will be just as important, and probably more difficult, than breaking down the geographical barriers.
I’m hopeful, it’s why I write this newsletter - but it will take some serious work. A don’t defeat thousands of years of ingrained bias overnight.
TikTok Resumes
TikTok is going to kill LinkedIn (and I am here for it).
Legal Equalizer and Mbye Njie
A few weeks ago, I spoke with entrepreneur (and fellow Davidson Wildcat) Mbye Njie about his company, Legal Equalizer. Mbye shared his broader vision with me, and wow, he’s just at the tip of the iceberg. This is great news for all of us because Legal Equalize is very, very necessary.
The best part? You can invest - Legal Equalizer is on Wefunder!
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Congrats to all the Johns!
Finally, An Article About Sales That Gets It3
Sadly, sales still has a perception problem. But it’s nice to see the WSJ discuss how the role has changed and for talking to smart sales leaders about what modern sales roles are about. Bonus points for providing some real-life examples of people who have switched over and don’t regret it.
“The new template for a salesperson is not about cold-calling. It’s not mechanical,” he says. “You have to be empathetic and deeply curious” about clients’ businesses.
Twitter Chatter
Harry Hurst, the founder of Pipe (a pretty genius company), uses a not-so-genius interview question.4 Note: Many of the replies are just as cringe.
Meanwhile, @anothercohen nails it:
We’ll be back next week to discuss common objections to structured interviews.
Fun fact: Gucci receives 200K+ Client Advisor applications each year. They currently have ~17K total employees. Do you think they’re complaining about a hot labor market? I doubt it.
“Tell me your story” might as well be “Please confirm my initial biases as quickly as possible.”
This is great. Fun and informative. Well done! You ended with my favorite line: “Tell me your story” might as well be “Please confirm my initial biases as quickly as possible.”