"Arguably, one of the most important ingredients for creative thinking is diversity. We all know that diverse teams produce more creative results than teams in which all members are from a similar background. Tests have shown that the one sure-fire way of improving your creativity is to move abroad. Not travel, but move. Living in a new culture, learning new ways of doing things and, in short, diversifying your life makes you more creative. That’s not surprising."
I think that may earn a place among the most ridiculous, unsubstantiated, incredible loads of horse crap I've ever read.
Anyone who needs to disengage from the known and be immersed in unfamiliarity in order to be creative is dysfunctional and should be weeded out in the first interview.
Give me someone who can chew through the mundane, endure repetition and self-stir the equilibrium-upset that allows one to imagine "different" while suffering the routine. THAT is a creative person, and one who will excel in real-world creative pursuits.
If you cant find exactly what you consider qualified why not hire the most qualified person that is available to you who wants a shot. Sometimes you have to develop people who have potential...
Because the training is on my dime instead of the candidate's.
Because those who have invested nothing in preparation have nothing to lose and may be less committed to doing well than someone who has made that job their goal rather than their starting point.
Because the training is time-consuming and affects not only productivity in the area being filled by the unqualified candidate, but mine because I'm busy training instead of doing my own job.
Because "wants a shot" has no direct correlation whatsoever to "is likely to be any good at it at all." Lots of people think they want the job and think they'd be good at it because they have no grasp of what's involved. Those who genuinely "want a shot" earn that shot by making themselves qualified. A course graduates fewer students than it starts with -- the training weeds out both those who discover the path isn't what they expected and (hopefully) those who just aren't ever going to be any good at it.
Because after going through the exercise enough times you simply tire of it and just want to hire someone who can get right to work.
That's "why not."
I could give you more reasons, but that at least gives you a quick summary of my experience as one who has been down the path you describe several times. Grooming the young upstart sounds romantic, but in the real world it just doesn't work out very often.
Not being able to find or make qualified employees is a failure of leadership. You cant blame anyone else for that other than yourself.
If you cant find exactly what you consider qualified why not hire the most qualified person that is available to you who wants a shot. Sometimes you have to develop people who have potential... Oh wait that takes leadership nevermind.
Too many companies want ready made people but people who are already qualified for the job may want to grow past what they are already capable of. There has to be a way for them to grow.
Right, my failure of leadership. I'm not Apple or IBM. I can't afford to mentor young people with no experience for years and develop their untapped potential. When I am looking for additional workers it is usually a more immediate need.
That said one of our top programmers did just walk in off the street looking for a job with very little experience. But that is like winning the lottery. It is not going to happen again.
I'm all for diversity but it needs to start with opportunities given fairly at the university level, with encouragement given to woman and minorities to enter into areas like engineering, sciences, etc. After that, companies need to hire the best person for the job listed regardless of colour, origin, etc.. If the top 100 applicants are gay black men, Lesbian hispanic woman, or blond arian Germans, that's who you hire. No two people are exactly equal when comparing them for a specific job. If a company is hiring based solely on the need to diversify, then they may in some cases hire the less qualified applicant. I applaud Tim's desire to make sure Apple has a fair hiring policy, but I don't agree that the numbers should be artificially managed. I think you have to look at, say, the top 1000 candidates coming out of MIT, Stanford, Caltech in a particular sector to understand the mix of gender, race, etc, and see if your company is naturally close to that level of diversity. It would be wrong to shoot for a 50-50 mix of men and woman for your software engineering department if the university outflows for this skill show that it's a 90-10 male dominated split (example only). If you start hiring the less qualified applicant, who in turn may hire a less qualified applicant you will have what Steve called the "bozo explosion".
"Arguably, one of the most important ingredients for creative thinking is diversity. We all know that diverse teams produce more creative results than teams in which all members are from a similar background. Tests have shown that the one sure-fire way of improving your creativity is to move abroad. Not travel, but move. Living in a new culture, learning new ways of doing things and, in short, diversifying your life makes you more creative. That’s not surprising."
I think that may earn a place among the most ridiculous, unsubstantiated, incredible loads of horse crap I've ever read.
Anyone who needs to disengage from the known and be immersed in unfamiliarity in order to be creative is dysfunctional and should be weeded out in the first interview.
Give me someone who can chew through the mundane, endure repetition and self-stir the equilibrium-upset that allows one to imagine "different" while suffering the routine. THAT is a creative person, and one who will excel in real-world creative pursuits.
Schutz. I didn't understand all your post, but you seem to be talking mostly sense. Good to see. ????
Not being able to find or make qualified employees is a failure of leadership. You cant blame anyone else for that other than yourself.
If you cant find exactly what you consider qualified why not hire the most qualified person that is available to you who wants a shot. Sometimes you have to develop people who have potential... Oh wait that takes leadership nevermind.
Too many companies want ready made people but people who are already qualified for the job may want to grow past what they are already capable of. There has to be a way for them to grow.
Right, my failure of leadership. I'm not Apple or IBM. I can't afford to mentor young people with no experience for years and develop their untapped potential. When I am looking for additional workers it is usually a more immediate need.
That said one of our top programmers did just walk in off the street looking for a job with very little experience. But that is like winning the lottery. It is not going to happen again.
Every business, no matter how small, should be mentoring young people. Not do do so is a failure of leadership and will lead to skills bring lost.
In business terms, you have the forward thinking of a dinosaur.
As a SERIOUSLY left handed guy, I can't see what left handedness has to do with anything specifically related to Apple or its current products. I am sure someone out there can think of something!!!
Some people with dwarfism prefer to be called "little people".
“Fun size.”
Bite size.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greatrix
As a SERIOUSLY left handed guy, I can't see what left handedness has to do with anything specifically related to Apple or its current products. I am sure someone out there can think of something!!!
Left-handed people are well-known to be more creative.
I don't see anyone in that pathetic list who is from the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too. WTF Apple?!!
As a SERIOUSLY left handed guy, I can't see what left handedness has to do with anything specifically related to Apple or its current products. I am sure someone out there can think of something!!!
Interesting. I've never thought about how Apple products fit into my left-handed world. That's probably a good sign!
Then again, I quit devoting any energy to being frustrated over things that are "unfair" to southpaws a long time ago so if there were anything I thought Apple could do to be more leftie-friendly, I would have forgotten about it as quickly as I thought of it!
At the age of 72, no business is going to hire me for anything¡
Dunno why not. We old farts deserve representation, too!
Is 72 even "old" anymore? The people I know who are around that age don't seem to operate much differently than I do at 52 (except maybe that they don't seem to let things bother them as much as I do).
At the age of 72, no business is going to hire me for anything¡
Dunno why not. We old farts deserve representation, too!
Is 72 even "old" anymore? The people I know who are around that age don't seem to operate much differently than I do at 52 (except maybe that they don't seem to let things bother them as much as I do).
Comments
From http://www.innovationmanagement.se/imtool-articles/why-diversity-is-the-mother-of-creativity/
"Arguably, one of the most important ingredients for creative thinking is diversity. We all know that diverse teams produce more creative results than teams in which all members are from a similar background. Tests have shown that the one sure-fire way of improving your creativity is to move abroad. Not travel, but move. Living in a new culture, learning new ways of doing things and, in short, diversifying your life makes you more creative. That’s not surprising."
I think that may earn a place among the most ridiculous, unsubstantiated, incredible loads of horse crap I've ever read.
Anyone who needs to disengage from the known and be immersed in unfamiliarity in order to be creative is dysfunctional and should be weeded out in the first interview.
Give me someone who can chew through the mundane, endure repetition and self-stir the equilibrium-upset that allows one to imagine "different" while suffering the routine. THAT is a creative person, and one who will excel in real-world creative pursuits.
If you cant find exactly what you consider qualified why not hire the most qualified person that is available to you who wants a shot. Sometimes you have to develop people who have potential...
Because the training is on my dime instead of the candidate's.
Because those who have invested nothing in preparation have nothing to lose and may be less committed to doing well than someone who has made that job their goal rather than their starting point.
Because the training is time-consuming and affects not only productivity in the area being filled by the unqualified candidate, but mine because I'm busy training instead of doing my own job.
Because "wants a shot" has no direct correlation whatsoever to "is likely to be any good at it at all." Lots of people think they want the job and think they'd be good at it because they have no grasp of what's involved. Those who genuinely "want a shot" earn that shot by making themselves qualified. A course graduates fewer students than it starts with -- the training weeds out both those who discover the path isn't what they expected and (hopefully) those who just aren't ever going to be any good at it.
Because after going through the exercise enough times you simply tire of it and just want to hire someone who can get right to work.
That's "why not."
I could give you more reasons, but that at least gives you a quick summary of my experience as one who has been down the path you describe several times. Grooming the young upstart sounds romantic, but in the real world it just doesn't work out very often.
Not being able to find or make qualified employees is a failure of leadership. You cant blame anyone else for that other than yourself.
If you cant find exactly what you consider qualified why not hire the most qualified person that is available to you who wants a shot. Sometimes you have to develop people who have potential... Oh wait that takes leadership nevermind.
Too many companies want ready made people but people who are already qualified for the job may want to grow past what they are already capable of. There has to be a way for them to grow.
Right, my failure of leadership. I'm not Apple or IBM. I can't afford to mentor young people with no experience for years and develop their untapped potential. When I am looking for additional workers it is usually a more immediate need.
That said one of our top programmers did just walk in off the street looking for a job with very little experience. But that is like winning the lottery. It is not going to happen again.
And 100% of them are different. That's really all that should matter.
But none of them is 100% different...
perhaps that's useful too?
I applaud Tim's desire to make sure Apple has a fair hiring policy, but I don't agree that the numbers should be artificially managed. I think you have to look at, say, the top 1000 candidates coming out of MIT, Stanford, Caltech in a particular sector to understand the mix of gender, race, etc, and see if your company is naturally close to that level of diversity. It would be wrong to shoot for a 50-50 mix of men and woman for your software engineering department if the university outflows for this skill show that it's a 90-10 male dominated split (example only).
If you start hiring the less qualified applicant, who in turn may hire a less qualified applicant you will have what Steve called the "bozo explosion".
Schutz. I didn't understand all your post, but you seem to be talking mostly sense. Good to see. ????
Every business, no matter how small, should be mentoring young people. Not do do so is a failure of leadership and will lead to skills bring lost.
In business terms, you have the forward thinking of a dinosaur.
“Fun size.”
Bite size.
As a SERIOUSLY left handed guy, I can't see what left handedness has to do with anything specifically related to Apple or its current products. I am sure someone out there can think of something!!!
Left-handed people are well-known to be more creative.
I don't see anyone in that pathetic list who is from the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too. WTF Apple?!!
perhaps that's useful too?
Might be, but since it’s completely and utterly impossible, it’s not worth wasting time thinking about.
... What, do you have to write with your left arm extended ALL the way out to the side?
The myriad back buttons in iOS are on the top left of the UI. Seems like it might be harder to reach as a lefty.
As a SERIOUSLY left handed guy, I can't see what left handedness has to do with anything specifically related to Apple or its current products. I am sure someone out there can think of something!!!
Interesting. I've never thought about how Apple products fit into my left-handed world. That's probably a good sign!
Then again, I quit devoting any energy to being frustrated over things that are "unfair" to southpaws a long time ago so if there were anything I thought Apple could do to be more leftie-friendly, I would have forgotten about it as quickly as I thought of it!
Dunno why not. We old farts deserve representation, too!
At the age of 72, no business is going to hire me for anything¡
Dunno why not. We old farts deserve representation, too!
Is 72 even "old" anymore? The people I know who are around that age don't seem to operate much differently than I do at 52 (except maybe that they don't seem to let things bother them as much as I do).
Old age begins at 50.
I did note early on that President Obama is a 'lefty' too. He hooks his left arm around in a most uncomfortable way when writing.
At 75, and still alive, if anyone offered me a job I would run a mile (and I can!)
GOD BLESS YOU.
Thank you very much!
God bless you, too.