Recently, I have set a goal to keep networking every month, and consequently, I have met many different individuals. With each newly acquainted person, I ask a question: What are your current hiring requirements?
This is an intriguing question, as they have to quickly articulate the most important aspects of their ideal candidate.
After consolidating numerous answers I've received, an interesting pattern arises - the more senior the position, the more abstract my answers become.
- Managers of front-line business can usually provide specific details, such as specific development skills, programming languages, etc., in the IT industry.
- However, executives usually focus more on solutions to domain-specific issues. These could be management issues, such as low team morale or lack of cohesion, or product-related issues like difficulties in customer acquisition or high organizational costs.
- Interestingly, when I asked a senior police officer who has served for over thirty years and our company's CTO, their answers surprisingly concurred - be smart.
Therefore, the higher we go along the professional ladder, the blurrier and abstract our objectives become.
Why are we consistently encouraged from young to be smart?
We are definitely familiar with the term "smart", having been constantly reminded to become smarter since childhood. But the definition of "smart" seems to be ever-changing. As children, we were praised as smart if we could comprehend adult conversations. As students, we are considered smart if we attain good grades. When working, we need affirmation from our bosses who praise us for being smart.
So, what is "smart"?
Indeed, "smart" is an abstract descriptor, referring to our ability to resolve issues. In actuality, societal expectations of this capability have been steadily increasing. As children, we had to merely take care of ourselves to ease our parents' worries. As students, we not only had to ease our parents' concerns but also make things easier for the school. As adults, we had to solve our bosses' problems and make things easier for the company. Notice that societal expectations for us are progressively climbing, and we need to learn increasingly more skills.
How can we become smarter?
Not everyone is destined to be a talent of society, as everyone needs to master different skills in varying social contexts. However, I want to emphasize that the teachings we have been receiving often focus too much on the overt knowledge and skills, leaning heavily on "hard skills". Hard skills is certainly important as they lay the foundations for success, but we should not overlook that real "smartness" encompasses a lot more.
Another large part of being "smart" actually relates to "soft skills", transcending specific skills and knowledge, pointing towards a higher level - a comprehensive capability encompassing blueprint building, decision-making and effective communication, among others. These require a flexible and keen thinking ability, the integration of hard skills with various interpersonal relationships, a deep understanding of products or services, and a sharp observation of market trends. Such a set of skills undeniably requires us to constantly learn and practice, improving our emotional intelligence while transforming ourselves into outstanding talent who can adapt flexibly and make efficient decisions.
Some may question, how do we master such skills? I believe, the only answer is to think. Only through in-depth, extensive thinking can we continually discover the essence of problems from our experiences, summarize methods, and thus enhance our decision-making ability, identifying a way of thinking and methodology that suits us the best.