Learning orientation

One of the important things that would be expected out of any prospective employee is learning orientation.   Let me give a real-time example for better understanding.

Few years ago, we were looking for a MBA fresher for Management Trainee position.  Of many candidates that we interviewed, we came across a candidate who could not answer some of the questions asked on motivational theories.  However, she had a good attitude, good communication and traits that you would want to see in a good candidate. So we gave her topic of her choice and asked her to make a presentation for about 10 minutes the very next day.

After a week, she made the presentation and she did a good job.  She was confident, did a decent amount of home work and communicated her points well.

We selected her right after the presentation and it was not based on the presentation she made.

Can you guess what else the basis was?

Her learning orientation.

During the presentation, I asked her the same set of questions on motivational theory that she could not answer during the first interaction and unlike the previous time, she was able to explain it confidently with examples too. Simple inferences that we could make out of this are 1) though she never knew that she was going to be asked the same questions, she took efforts to learn what she did not know. So she is keen to learn things that she does not know 2) though she had to prepare for the presentation the very next day, she did learn the motivational theories. So she is willing to find time and learn things sooner and faster.

She was on-board the next week.

Points to ponder

# Learning orientation is the differentiator: In any hiring process, do try to find out one’s learning orientation. Do understand what the candidates knows.  If they don’t know something important (for the role for which they are being hired), do find out how keen are they to learn it and are they learning it faster and sooner. These are the candidates who can learn things faster and on a continuous basis and make a difference, probably a bid differences at Workplace.

# A candidate without or with a less learning orientation will take longer time to scale up. A candidate with aggressive learning orientation can learn things fast and probably overtake the candidates with less learning orientation.

# Do more with less: Candidates with good learning orientation are potential candidates even if they were to not have all the skills that you are looking for. The advantages of hiring such candidates are 1) You get a candidate at a competitive cost.  We live in a business world where we are expected to deliver more with less.  Hence this turns out be a differentiator. 2) There is a high retention chances since they would get opportunities to learn which means enough work challenges.

# If you are doing 2^nd level interview, do talk to the person who did 1^st level interview and find out the questions that the candidate did not answer during the first round. Find out if the candidate is able to answer now.

# If you want to check one’s learning orientation at workplace, don’t check how many mistakes they are making, but do check how many mistakes they are repeating and not repeating and thus scaling up their skills on a regular basis. A good indicator of one’s learning orientation. 

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