the value of intelligence

The other day I was sitting in a management meeting and we were discussing certain traits we were looking for in a position we were about to hire for.  Top of my list is always intelligence and I said as such.

Wendy, of course they’ll be smart.  We only want the best, type a players!

I didn’t say smart or possessing great knowledge.  I said intelligent and in my world there is a big difference.

Fine then.  Tell us what you are looking for.  What is “intelligent”?

For me it is better to be intelligent then to possess a wealth of knowledge.  Bit of a chicken and egg scenario (which came first) because they do compliment each other but hear me out.  Anyone can regurgitate what they just read in the daily newspaper (e.g. possess a knowledge) but I’m interested in the person who takes what they already know through life experience, applies it to the existing problem or topic and comes out the other side with a creative solution or comment.  I may not know what happened yesterday in the news but if you tell me I can then, using my own experiences, make some sort of educated comment to heighten the already existing knowledge and perhaps a potential solution.

In an ever changing start up environment I value the ability to assess the situation and come up with creative solutions, regardless of the role.

How do you interview for intelligence?

As I said, intelligence involves creativity, problem solving and applying what you do know to what you don’t know.  So, here are some sample interview questions:

• what kinds of problems have people recently called on you to solve? Tell me about your contribution to solving the problem? [this lends to a certain knowing or understanding on a particular topic within the role - try to phrase the following questions in the context of this example]
• what do you do differently than your predecessors in you current position?  why did you make the change? [again, this enhances the understanding of the role]
• describe a significant project, idea, etc. that you have conceived within the past year.  How did you know they were needed and would work? Were they used? did they work? [this lends to a level of initiative and creativity]
• finally, given the role and topic and individual in front of you (based on the first three questions), try to phrase a question that will require the answer to: (a) pull on a base knowledge from the role (b) requires assumptions (c) has an element of story telling and (d) a conclusion. For example, with finance positions I show them a budget vs. actual income statement and ask them to tell me what happened.  Saying the answer: “revenues came below plan” is not a good answer - I want to know why!!  A better answer would be: “the income statement is from the first quarter of this year (an assumption) and due to economic down turn (applying what they know) the company came in below plan.”  Yes!

Now, interviewing takes a lot of effort on behalf of both parties.  If you want to not scare the crap out of your candidate by asking tough questions, go with one of the following and try and achieve the same result:

• what would you do with a million ping pong balls?
• how would you move a mountain?
• there is a pink elephant in the room, tell me about it.

These three questions require a base knowledge, assumptions, an element of story telling and a conclusion - all while they are nervous as hell and needing to think quickly.  There is no wrong answer just levels of intelligence to be applied.

Good luck with the interviews!