In order to center people in our hiring practices, we must change the way we assess skills. In this episode, Kelly is joined by Omer Molad, the Co-Founder and CEO of Vervoe, a recruitment platform that helps companies hire the very best by focusing on who can do the job, not just who looks good on paper. Vervoe predicts job performance using skills assessments that showcase the talent of every candidate. 

Omer believes the key to hiring is that "context matters. When you do it in context, you bring out not just the functional or job-specific skills, but how they're going to contribute. How are they going to apply themselves? How are they going to learn? How are they going to work with others? These things are critically important. It about experiences and performance, not chronological job histories."

Big Takeaways:  

• Grades don't necessarily correlate. If someone got good grades, that's great. But the way we teach in school and in university, in college, doesn't necessarily translate into the way that we do things practically in the workplace. (10:00) 
• Previous employment can be thought of as apprenticeships. They all contribute to your future jobs. You don't have to have worked in the same thing, in the same field, in the same place in order to be good at X. There are other paths. (25:00) 
• What you have done in your life, no matter how sort of eccentric or weird or unrelated to anything tangible, it counts. It's made you a richer person, it's made you a better person, it's who you are. And whether you are doing it consciously or not, you are applying it in your current role. (47:00) 

Books mentioned:

David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Mastery by Robert Greene

Follow Omer on LinkedIn @Omer Molad

Vervoe