Customer Reviews

The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've hired a bunch of people in my time, and I've learned this: Hiring a "B" player is easy; hiring an "A" is much tougher. So, I'm always looking to understand how to find that haystack needle -- the person who's going to help lead my little organization into places I hadn't even considered. After all, most of us aren't making widgets any more, but we're paid to think and create.

Frankly, that's why I love this book. Anders, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and editor, takes us into hiring environments we never would see -- the U.S. Army's Special Forces, Facebook's puzzlers, a casting director. There's fun story-telling here (I love how the hiring director of the Special Forces provides exhausted soldiers with too few pieces of chicken at the end of the day to see how they will work together).

More importantly, with a palette that colorful, Anders teaches us critical ways of viewing potential hires. While some of the info he gleans isn't all that new (i.e. appreciating failures), most of The Rare Find is filled with smart, fresh tips. My favorite is the "jagged resume," which takes us to the heart of the modern, thinking economy. Anders shows how smart managers recognize the elements a potential hire has garnered from detours, missteps, even vacations. Each of those nuggets contributes to how the best, most thoughtful hires will bring critical skills to a new job.

My copy of this book is filled with underlines and dog-ears. Don't ask to borrow it -- I'm keeping this one.

I wasn't sure I would enjoy reading "The Rare Find." Yes, the subject matter--finding remarkably talented people overlooked by others--interested me, but I was concerned the book might present a one-size-fits-all recipe for success. I also wondered just how interesting author George Anders could make the topic. Well, to get to the point, my concerns proved to be unfounded. I not only discovered this book to be very useful and informative, but quite interesting, too. It's a real page-turner.

I suppose I should have known better. Having read Michael Lewis' "Moneyball" (which I recommend) about the use of innovative approaches in finding exceptional baseball players overlooked by most major league teams, I should have realized that the topic can be made compelling. Like Lewis, Anders has woven the real-life stories of people and organizations into his discussions of what works in finding rare talent.

For example, when the U.S. Army's elite Special Forces look for those soldiers who will become effective Green Berets, they don't simply look for the most exceptional cases of physical strength and endurance. Physical capabilities are essential, of course, but they aren't necessarily enough. It turns out that watching small teams of Special Forces candidates try to move an old, rusted trailer a few miles can be very revealing about the leadership, persistence and flexibility components of the job. As the reader of this book becomes engrossed in the descriptions of the soldiers' efforts, through their stories the reader learns something about finding the key components of success.

This book is literally one seemingly unique (yet pattern-forming) story after another. There's the story of the remarkable success of the University of Utah's legendary graphics team, composed in large part of people who didn't fit well elsewhere. There's the story of how innovative organizations like Facebook found creative ways to compete with much larger companies that could devote countless hours to interviewing potential employees. For example, faced with the need to rapidly scale up their company, Facebook created innovative programming challenges ("puzzles") that it posted on its website. These puzzles were not like the famous brainteasers reportedly used years ago by big software companies (for example, "How many gold balls could you fit in a Boeing 747?"). Rather, Facebook's puzzles took hours of creative, innovative programming, and that's exactly what they were looking for. Unsurprisingly, they found a number of overlooked people in unexpected places, like Portland, Maine, for example. Indeed, a central message of this book is that exceptional talent doesn't always look to be quite so exceptional, until you look much closer.

The stories just keep on coming. Some involve people you may have heard of, like Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera, Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling, or country singer Taylor Swift. These exceptionally talented people were not obvious stars from the beginning. Their stories are fascinating, and through them the reader continues to learn about the process of finding rare talent. Some of the organizations described by Anders, like Teach for America or Johns Hopkins Hospital, are also well known, and their stories about finding exceptional talent are also compelling. There's more--much more--but hopefully you can see how the author has used a lot of research regarding rare individuals in order to weave a compelling narrative. If the subject of finding rare talent interests you, this book is worthy of your consideration.

George Anders' exceptional explication of the realm of extraordinary talent flows with a rhythm and language rarely found in non fiction works. Mr. Anders leads the reader on a captivating journey, examining outlier talent in such wide ranging professions as physicians, venture capitalists, special forces troops and country music talent scouts. The stimulating lessons he draws from the creative identification of these special individuals are always enlightening and frequently surprising.

The Rare Find provides a rare experience, an experience where the three hours enjoying this work naturally segues into many more hours of thoughtful contemplation of its important themes. Do not miss this book.

George Anders sets himself the goal to show his audience how to discover what he calls the "Rare Find" before somebody else discovers him/her. For this purpose, Mr. Anders comes up with a process that is articulated around three premises:

1. Widen one's view of talent;

2. Find inspirations that are hidden in plain sight; and

3. Simplify one's search for talent.

The candidate's core character is central to this quest. The nine character traits that matter the most to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) when choosing new agents are a good template to be used in this quest. These nine character traits are initiative, perseverance, compatibility, discipline, trainability, judgment, loyalty, leadership, and maturity. Mr. Anders often touches on these personality traits when he examines how the best talent recruiters from the public and private sectors proceed to find these rare "birds" that make all the difference between success and failure. Mr. Anders relates the experience of recruiters from the Green Berets, the music industry, new start-ups, multinationals, or hospitals, to name a few sectors of activity.

In summary, Mr. Anders gives some useful tips to his readers to broaden their horizon while being systematic in their search for the "Rare Find" that is too often hidden in plain sight.

Many companies overlook the talent already in their organizations, restraining or limiting the impact of high potential individuals. They are quick to saddle employees with "baggage" and pigeon hole them as quickly as possible - believing it's easier to manage someone once they fit nicely into a predefined box. Other companies take a short-term view of value offered by individuals, referring to an individual's "stock" as going up or down based on recent performance.

Anders' message of how to spot potential outside resounds inside the organization as well. Executives responsible for talent management (and that should be all executives) should read this book, and rediscover the high potential individuals within their organizations. Many poignant examples highlight how traditional models of fit and worth can lead to mediocre performance, wasted talent, or loss of stars.

I've already purchased several copies for clients - saving mine a permanent spot on my bookshelf.

An amazing look into companies and organizations where we all wish we could spend a day. The book is very well researched and informed. Anders takes us from Special Forces to Facebook and helps us see the correlation in productive talent picking. One does not need to be a corporate exec to appreciate the lessons...this book is about people. You won't regret it.

As a staffing consultant, my bookshelf is full of books on recruiting, interviewing and hiring. Few are as well written as this. I have never read one with more practical, intelligent advice. I highlighted something useful on about every third page.

Talented author and journalist George Anders takes us into the world of finding those people with the most potential, recognizing and recruiting the real talent in a way that opens our eyes. His natural storytelling skills are captivating, bringing us alongside for a journey with college basketball coaches, teachers, Hollywood executives, the military, and many others. His insights from their stories are valuable, and the road to discover them enjoyable in this impressive new book. In the end, the lessons and insights will make everybody better at discovering talent.

"The Rare Find" is not a typical business book. George Anders' careful research with some of the best talent spotters, combined with his own thoughtful reflections, lead the reader to discover some universal truths about high-performing employees. Who knew that resilience is a prized trait? That character trumps experience?

This book also provides useful advice for job seekers with "jagged resumes" who can't crack the usual H.R. roadblocks. For example, at Facebook your ability to solve puzzles on the company website could lead to employment.

It is entertaining and inspiring to learn how the Army's Special Forces, sports scouts and Google find the best of the best. Their areas of expertise may differ, but the patterns that lead to success are remarkably similar.

Buy this book. You won't be disappointed.

I am a Headhunter so when I read about the book in Business Week I immediately purchased the book. The book is well written, and entertaining. It covers a wide area of industries...from finding great teachers to selecting Green Berets, to finding great self-taught programmers and so on. If your looking for checklist of what to look for this book is really not for you. Green Berets use resilancy as a measure of who will make it in their program, facebook uses a puzzels as a means to discover talent. Okay that is great but what how do I use that for what I do? Not sure.

The book did make me think about what qualities exceptional posseses, so if anything the book made me think of what I could be doing to better myself.