The Rare Find

Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else

De: George Anders

Narrado por: Robert Fass

A journalistic quest to discover the secrets of the best talent hunters, revealing how they spot superstars before anybody else.

Why are some people so much better than everyone else at spotting future stars? How do the best talent pickers in any field recognize future greatness - the subtle and reliable tells that indicate the potential for top performance?

George Anders set out to find the best talent hunters in the worlds of business, sports, pop music, movies, venture capital, academia, medical research, and the military. As radically different as these fields may seem, all share an intense belief in the importance of finding high achievers. Anders reveals some surprising insights as he explores, for example:

• How Hollywood casting agents size up candidates
• How venture capitalists pick winners like Apple and Google
• How the Army's special forces culls top recruits

Anders pairs his frontline observations with the rapidly expanding research findings of psychiatrists, economists, recruiters, and business strategists. He offers powerful tools that can help anyone tasked with tracking down tomorrow's talent. The Rare Find explains how anyone can hone the ability to recognize future greatness.

©2011 George Anders (P)2011 Penguin

Just ok.

At times, interesting. It felt like alot of sports references. I'm not into sports so my mind tended to wander. I thought I'd learn hows to make the rare finds. But I'm not sure I did.

Think twice before dismissing someone

This book was recommended to me by a colleague of mine. At first I didn’t think much of it, I figured it was just another philosophy book on how to hire people. Which it was, but this one had true valid points on why we should be careful before we dismiss someone for a specific role and to look deeper into that person‘s decision making rather than just on the surface resume stuff. Sometimes the best leaders aren’t always the loudest, and sometimes the best leaders don’t always come off as leaders per societal standards, And this book is great add showing us how to find those rare people.

Great look at the topic of data and outliers,

This was recommended in The Gold Mine effect and was definitely worth the time. A similar but different look at spotting less than obvious people and patterns.

Hardly an interesting book

Basic idea is that the rare find are those who feature a jagged resume. No more insight than that. Too many simplified stories to support one single idea. The idea is good but this should have been a tweet instead of a book.

Just a bunch of stories

Nothing practical to take away from this book if you are a seasoned recruitment professional. Good stories but not more than that.