Is Talent a Thing?

Analysis

• Episode: Is Talent a Thing?
• Website: Analysis
• Feed URL: https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/b006r4vz.rss
• Duration: 00:28:36
• Published: 2017-02-13 22:00

When hiring people, is the concept of talent so ill-defined as to be useless? Entrepreneur and author Margaret Heffernan thinks so and explores what characteristics recruiters might want to look for instead. She argues that we need something new, as good grades and top degrees have proved no guarantee of high performance in the workplace. She talks to the recent head of HR (or "people operations") at Google, the pioneer of the concept of a "growth mindset", and the academic who found people's intelligence increased over the course of the 20th century. She also hears about other measures like "grit", "cultural fit" and how to interview people to find the candidate who is best for the job and the company, rather than the one you like. Producer: Arlene Gregorius.