Now That Google Downplays SAT Scores When Hiring, What Matters More to Them?

I read an interesting article on BusinessInsider.com that said that Google has changed its criteria for hiring people recently.

For years, they made an organizational commitment to use SAT scores as a major criteria for selecting staff.  They decided to devalue SAT scores as a criteria because they found no correlation between them and success at their firm.

What has replaced it?

Well, by mining their data, Google was able to find out that ” the most innovative and happy workers feel like they have autonomy and a strong sense of mission, so Google looks for more than just the best grades and test scores.”

For years, I have said to firms that they would never hire Steve Jobs. Would you hire Donald Trump or Barack Obama? I suspect not, although all for different reasons.

I believe that it is important for organizations lead regular review processes of their top and bottom achievers at all levels of the organization and track common criteria of success they possess as well as the outcomes they’ve generated.

Through studying that data in your organization over many years, you will see common predictable patterns for success and failure and hopefully replicate the successes and avoid the failures.

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