For an entrepreneur, it is important to cultivate the ability to really understand people. Because people will always be your biggest strength (..or weakness). As the leader of a startup and a growing organisation, building my team at Epoch has always been personal to me. A resume is a fact sheet about the person, a base, a strong base to help with decision making, to understand the level of the hard skills that exist and need to be built on.
But, what is important is to understand the individual. One can train, teach and mentor on hard skills but changing a person is a rare possibility and an unrealistic expectation. In the field of care, where one needs to be wired to give more than take- it is the person you bank on for saving the day. Spend half of the interview hour just getting the person to talk about themselves, don’t direct, turn your chair into Freud’s couch if you can and see what comes out.
People rub onto other people. Loyalty, undying commitment, integrity and a never say die attitude are rare gems to find esp when you want all of them together. But invest in your ability to find them and see your vision turn into reality!
