为什么最优秀的员工没有最完美的简历？【TED演讲】

来源：TED.com

演讲者：Regina Hartley

文本翻译：百家汇创业社区 L10

最好的人才一定有最漂亮的简历吗？如果有个求职者是个嬉皮士，经常几个星期不洗澡，吸过毒，去印度当过几个月流浪汉，大学辍学，你会雇佣他吗？然而这份简历来自一手缔造了苹果帝国的乔布斯。

美国UPS公司人力资源总监，一位经验丰富的人才招聘专家在TED演讲中分享：有些人的履历写在纸上并不美，但没准那正是你最需要hire的人。

（视频时长约10分钟，请在Wi-Fi环境下观看本视频。）

英文原文

Your company launches a search for an open position. The applications start rolling in, and the qualified candidates are identified. Now the choosing begins. Person A: Ivy League, 4.0, flawless resume, great recommendations. All the right stuff. Person B: state school, fair amount of job hopping, and odd jobs like cashier and singing waitress. But remember — both are qualified. So I ask you: who are you going to pick?

My colleagues and I created very official terms to describe two distinct categories of candidates. We call A "the Silver Spoon," the one who clearly had advantages and was destined for success. And we call B "the Scrapper," the one who had to fight against tremendous odds to get to the same point. You just heard a human resources director refer to people as Silver Spoons and Scrappers.

which is not exactly politically correct and sounds a bit judgmental. But before my human resources certification gets revoked.

let me explain.

A resume tells a story. And over the years, I've learned something about people whose experiences read like a patchwork quilt, that makes me stop and fully consider them before tossing their resumes away. A series of odd jobs may indicate inconsistency, lack of focus, unpredictability. Or it may signal a committed struggle against obstacles. At the very least, the Scrapper deserves an interview.

To be clear, I don't hold anything against the Silver Spoon; getting into and graduating from an elite university takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice. But if your whole life has been engineered toward success, how will you handle the tough times? One person I hired felt that because he attended an elite university, there were certain assignments that were beneath him, like temporarily doing manual labor to better understand an operation. Eventually, he quit. But on the flip side, what happens when your whole life is destined for failure and you actually succeed?

I want to urge you to interview the Scrapper. I know a lot about this because I am a Scrapper. Before I was born, my father was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and he couldn't hold a job in spite of his brilliance. Our lives were one part "Cuckoo's Nest," one part "Awakenings" and one part "A Beautiful Mind."

I'm the fourth of five children raised by a single mother in a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. We never owned a home, a car, a washing machine, and for most of my childhood, we didn't even have a telephone. So I was highly motivated to understand the relationship between business success and Scrappers, because my life could easily have turned out very differently. As I met successful business people and read profiles of high-powered leaders, I noticed some commonality.

Many of them had experienced early hardships, anywhere from poverty, abandonment, death of a parent while young, to learning disabilities, alcoholism and violence. The conventional thinking has been that trauma leads to distress, and there's been a lot of focus on the resulting dysfunction. But during studies of dysfunction, data revealed an unexpected insight: that even the worst circumstances can result in growth and transformation. A remarkable and counterintuitive phenomenon has been discovered, which scientists call Post Traumatic Growth.

In one study designed to measure the effects of adversity on children at risk, among a subset of 698 children who experienced the most severe and extreme conditions, fully one-third grew up to lead healthy, successful and productive lives. In spite of everything and against tremendous odds, they succeeded. One-third.

Take this resume. This guy's parents give him up for adoption. He never finishes college. He job-hops quite a bit, goes on a sojourn to India for a year, and to top it off, he has dyslexia. Would you hire this guy? His name is Steve Jobs.

In a study of the world's most highly successful entrepreneurs, it turns out a disproportionate number have dyslexia. In the US, 35 percent of the entrepreneurs studied had dyslexia. What's remarkable — among those entrepreneurs who experience post traumatic growth, they now view their learning disability as a desirable difficulty which provided them an advantage because they became better listeners and paid greater attention to detail. They don't think they are who they are in spite of adversity, they know they are who they are because of adversity. They embrace their trauma and hardships as key elements of who they've become, and know that without those experiences, they might not have developed the muscle and grit required to become successful.

One of my colleagues had his life completely upended as a result of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1966. At age 13, his parents were relocated to the countryside, the schools were closed and he was left alone in Beijing to fend for himself until 16, when he got a job in a clothing factory. But instead of accepting his fate, he made a resolution that he would continue his formal education. Eleven years later, when the political landscape changed, he heard about a highly selective university admissions test. He had three months to learn the entire curriculum of middle and high school. So, every day he came home from the factory, took a nap, studied until 4am, went back to work and repeated this cycle every day for three months. He did it, he succeeded. His commitment to his education was unwavering, and he never lost hope. Today, he holds a master's degree, and his daughters each have degrees from Cornell and Harvard.

Scrappers are propelled by the belief that the only person you have full control over is yourself. When things don't turn out well, Scrappers ask, "What can I do differently to create a better result?" Scrappers have a sense of purpose that prevents them from giving up on themselves, kind of like if you've survived poverty, a crazy father and several muggings, you figure, "Business challenges? —

Really? Piece of cake. I got this."

And that reminds me — humor. Scrappers know that humor gets you through the tough times, and laughter helps you change your perspective.

And finally, there are relationships. People who overcome adversity don't do it alone. Somewhere along the way, they find people who bring out the best in them and who are invested in their success. Having someone you can count on no matter what is essential to overcoming adversity. I was lucky. In my first job after college, I didn't have a car, so I carpooled across two bridges with a woman who was the president's assistant. She watched me work and encouraged me to focus on my future and not dwell on my past. Along the way I've met many people who've provided me brutally honest feedback, advice and mentorship. These people don't mind that I once worked as a singing waitress to help pay for college.

I'll leave you with one final, valuable insight. Companies that are committed to diversity and inclusive practices tend to support Scrappers and outperform their peers. According to DiversityInc, a study of their top 50 companies for diversity outperformed the S&P 500 by 25 percent.

So back to my original question. Who are you going to bet on: Silver Spoon or Scrapper? I say choose the underestimated contender, whose secret weapons are passion and purpose.

Hire the Scrapper.

中文译文

公司某职位公开招聘，应聘者纷至沓来，HR埋头挑选。这是一个甄别的过程。候选人甲：常青藤名校生、高分学霸、简历完美、推荐人NB，简直是天之骄子。候选人乙：州立大学毕业，频繁跳槽，其间夹杂着收银、酒吧驻唱等乱入经历。然而，两者都符合职位要求，那么问题来了，你选谁？我和同事们给这两类典型的应聘者起了个正式外号：甲是“银勺子（silver spoon）”——人生赢家，成功号列车的常客。乙是“皮拳套（scapper）”，要一路打斗，鼻青脸肿才走到的今天的位置。

你今天听到一位人力资源总监用银勺子和皮拳套来形容人了。这样的绰号听着有点别扭，也许太主观。不过，在我的人力资源执业证被吊销前，请容我解释。

每人的简历都是个故事。那种充满乱入经历的简历让我有所领悟。在把这种简历扔掉之前，我会深思熟虑。太多奇葩履历也许意味着没有恒心，不够专注，不可预测，但也可能是勇于克服困难的信号。至少，“皮拳套”也值得一次面试。

当然，我绝不是说“银勺子”有什么不好。能从名校毕业，绝对需要非常勤奋和投入。但如果一个人一生都在“成功号”列车上行驶，万一遇到事故脱轨当如何应对？我曾招过一个名校生，他觉得自己是精英，不该做低端工作，当他暂时需要从事体力型工作以全面了解某项操作时，他竟愤而辞职了。反过来，如果一个人终身都在经历着各种失败，却最终获得了成功，那会是什么样？

提醒各位，“皮拳套”真的值得一面。对此我很有发言权，因为本人就是一只“皮拳套”。我出生前，父亲就患上了偏执型精神分裂症，满腹才华却没有工作。我们的生活就像“飞越疯人院”、“无语问苍天”、“美丽心灵”等大片随机播放。后来母亲单独拉扯大了家里五个孩子，我排行老四。我们住在纽约布鲁克林的脏乱差社区，没有自己的房子、汽车、洗衣机，甚至连电话也没有。我对商业成功的追求有着天然的敏感，因为如果不努力就太容易沉沦。从遇见的成功商业人士和读过的大腕级人物简介中我发现，他们有个共同点。许多成功人士早年都遭遇了不幸，例如贫穷、被抛弃、幼年丧亲、学习困难症、酒精成瘾、暴力等。人们以为创伤会造成颓废，最终一事无成。但是有数据证明，即使最糟糕的环境也能孕育成长和转型。这是种违反直觉的现象，科学界称之为——创伤后成长。

有项科学实验研究了逆境对那些处在创伤下的孩子成长有何影响，共跟踪调查了698个来自最严酷和极端成长条件下的儿童。有超过1/3的孩子能健康长大，成功成才。尽管所有的条件都不利于他们，尽管要克服巨大的阻力，他们还是成功了。请记住，这比例是三分之一。

给大家看一份简历：此人从小被亲生父母交送他人领养，大学辍学，换了很多份工作，曾去印度旅居一年，最要命的是：他有读写困难症。你是HR的话，你会雇佣这样的人吗？他的名字叫史蒂夫乔布斯。

一项对全世界最成功企业家的研究表明，居然有不少高人都患有读写困难症。在美国的企业家样本中，读写困难的比例高达35%。但遭遇这样的挫折时，这些成功人士认为，这反而是一项优势——不能阅读，所以他们更善于倾听，也更专注细节。他们不认为是自己克服了困境，而认为是困境成就了自己。创伤和困难简直成了他们通向成功的必要元素，没有这样挣扎的经历，他们就不会有毅力和力量去追求成功。

我有个来自中国的同事经历了1966年的文革。13岁时随着父母下放农村，结果学校被关闭，他又一个人被扔在北京自生自灭，直到16岁进了一家服装厂做工。他没有认命，而决心要学习深造。11年后，国内政治环境终于转变，他听到恢复高考的消息，便用三个月时间自学完了整个初高中课程。每天从厂里一下班，先回家小睡片刻，然后看书学习到临晨4点，接着回工厂上班。这样日复一日坚持了三个月，终于如愿以偿考上大学。他对读书的信念如此坚定不移，从未气馁。今天他已经是硕士学历，他的两个女儿分别从康奈尔大学和哈佛大学毕业成了高材生。

“皮拳套”们深信自己的命运只掌握在自己手里。世事不尽如人意，他们却说：为何我不能靠自己努力扭转结局？“皮拳套”的目的感强烈，从不轻言放弃。如果穷困潦倒、一个疯爸爸，几轮抢劫都没有打倒你，你会说：事业挫折，那是神马？分分钟搞定。这还体现了幽默感。铁刮刀们最擅长以幽默感抵御困境，以笑声改变观念。

还有人际关系问题。“皮拳套”不是一个人在战斗，那些战胜逆境的人找到了贵人，对他们深信不疑和大胆投资，才使他们走了出来。我大学毕业后找到第一份工作时还买不起车，就和老板的助理拼车上班。她观察了我工作的状态，并鼓励我着眼未来而不是沉陷于过去。这些年来我遇到很多贵人，他们直言反馈，给我建议和指导。他们不介意我曾为挣学费做过酒吧歌女。

最后我要说，那些拥抱多元性和包容性文化的公司一般都支持“铁刮刀”，并且这些公司的表现都优于同类。Diversity Inc杂志评选的多元化公司排名前50强公司比标准普尔500上市公司的业绩平均高出25%。

回到我最初的问题：银勺子和皮拳套，你选谁？我会选那个被低估的候选人，他有份秘密武器，就是他的激情和目的感。

“皮拳套”，你值得拥有。

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