What's 'Study abroad' got to do with it?
Quick piece for a busy Wednesday - take about 2 minutes and check out this summary on the Fashionista site, (and no, don't be surprised that I read Fashionista, I cast a pretty wide net to find good content), of a recent interview with J. Crew CEO and fashion retailing legend Mickey Wexler.
Wexler offered some great nuggets of insight from his 40+ year career from really simple observations that we all know to be true but sometimes try to forget - "Marketing only works if the product does"; to takes on more fundamental elements of business and organizational strategy - "Mission statements are a waste of time. Just live by them."
But the one bit of advice from Wexler that caught my attention and is probably most relevant for the talent professional is Wexler's take on evaluating talent - advice that he was careful to emphasize was applicable for his business, certainly has more fundamental and universal applicability. Here's his take first, and then I'll leave you with a question or two to consider:
The person is a resume, not what’s on a piece of paper. Whoever gives advice about resumes in college should be dismissed. Titles don’t matter. GPAs don’t matter, nor does what school you go to. What matters is hard work, and emotional intelligence. People put ‘study abroad’ on their resume. I actually like when they don’t study abroad because that means they aren’t entitled. What about study abroad will make you a better J.Crew associate? I hire a lot of waiters, waitresses. Someone who’s successful has a background that’s not predictable.
Great quote right? And one that I think, moving beyond the specifics of resume formatting and the relevance of particular academic credentials, gets to a really essential point about talent assessment and evaluation. Namely, a really deep and intrinsic understanding of what backgrounds and types of people are likely to accomplish two things at J. Crew. One, to identify who actually be successful at the company; and two, to determine who is likely to be the type of employee that others want to work with and will 'fit'.
Again, for Wexler and his fashion retail business, 'study abroad' doesn't fit his model, for you and your business it might. The specifics of Study abroad and its value to a person's growth or their job candidacy are not the point, the point is whether or not you know if 'study abroad', (or any other precise indicator) is predictive of success at your company or not.
So here is the question I promised - if the next resume that you review for one of your openings lists 'study abroad' as an accomplishment, does that matter at all in your assessment?
Should it?
Have a great Wednesday all!
Career, Recruiting tagged Recruiting, career, hiring, talent management Email Article 
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Reader Comments (2)
Hi,
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Best,
KC Owens
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