What’s more important: experience or potential? In an accounting firm, experience can sometimes be the focus of a hiring decision. However, potential really is a smart hire. High performing potentials…that’s a win.

In Claudio Fernandez-Araoz’s article 21st Century Talent Spotting in the June 2014 Harvard Business Review, he points out that employers must focus on potential versus experience.

Managers must learn to assess current and prospective employees on five key indicators:

1. Motivation
2. Curiosity
3. Insight
4. Engagement
5. Determination

• Motivation: a fierce commitment to excel in the pursuit of unselfish goals
• Curiosity: a penchant for seeking out new experiences, knowledge, and candid feedback and an openness to learning and change
• Insight: the ability to gather and make sense of information that suggests new possibilities
• Engagement: a knack for using emotion and logic to communicate a persuasive vision and connect with people
• Determination: the wherewithal to fight for difficult goals despite challenges and to bounce back from adversity

Who wouldn’t want to hire someone with these key attributes? They have the ability to form their own career path and design their future.

Our jobs as employers is to make sure they have opportunities that push them out of their comfort zone…stretch development. We should always be growing and learning at all levels of our organizations.

The CEO of Zoetis prepared for the top job.  He put together a development plan. The first step was identifying a mentor, an experienced CEO from outside of his organization. The next step was to find a communication expert to work with. The audience for an IPO road show is quite different and it requires the skill to communicate your company’s strategy to the outside world. Another step he took was to develop the skills to manage a board.

Learning…changing…developing…stretching…

It all starts with potential.