Is talent a thing?

 ‎Arlene Gregorius, a senior broadcast journalist at BBC has produced an insightful programme about the concept of  talent. Its not aimed specifically at the legal profession but, its subject matter should be familiar to those recruiting lawyers. She asks:

 When hiring people, is the concept of talent so ill-defined as to be useless? Entrepreneur and author Margaret Heffernan thinks so and explores what characteristics recruiters might want to look for instead. She argues that we need something new, as good grades and top degrees have proved no guarantee of high performance in the workplace. She talks to the recent head of HR (or “people operations”) at Google, the pioneer of the concept of a “growth mindset”, and the academic who found people’s intelligence increased over the course of the 20th century. She also hears about other measures like “grit”, “cultural fit” and how to interview people to find the candidate who is best for the job and the company, rather than the one you like.

Click on the link below:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08dnkh8

 Sophie Partner who has a Masters in Psychology (MSc) thinks that the qualities that  you need in individuals to make a great team are a desire to improve, commitment, grit, resilience, emotional intelligence and passion to succeed in anything that one does, all of these qualities, as we have discussed before are interlinked with lots of things: success in life, success in work and success in relationships. So is talent a thing or are law firms getting the quick fix by hiring talent now but missing out on hiring the best people in the long term?