What is the most important capability for operations?

Introduction: What do you value most when recruiting operators? You might as well think briefly for two minutes: What do you think is the most important ability in operations? Read on later.

"Copywriting" element

"Data analysis" element

"Large company background" element

Fortunately, I graduated from university The concept of cultivating talents has been inspired:

Dr. Wu Jun, the author of "Top of the Wave", once said that regarding the concept of universities, he strongly agrees with the views of John Newman, Bishop of Oxford University and founder of the Oxford Movement: "University is a place to spread universal knowledge rather than trivial skills."

I believe that a senior operator should be able to "understand the road of operation, rather than be addicted to it." Trivial skills."

After deeply thinking about the correlation of various capabilities in operational practice, Li Shaojia believes that the most important internal operational skills should be the following three points:

▍Exploring the essence of the target

First understand the essence and then think about the best strategy.

The essence of operational competition is actually the "input-output ratio" of operational resources (human resources, funds, channels), and the prerequisite for obtaining a high input-output ratio is: understanding and judgment of the nature of operational goals (Meaning the courage to “manage up” on the wrong goals).

For example, if you set a goal for new media operations: increase the number of fans of the public account to 10,000 in a quarter. This is actually not a good and accurate goal. What is the positioning of the official account itself? Is it used as an independent content product to serve corporate brands (such as Luoji Thinking), or is it used as a means of attracting traffic for specific products? Furthermore, are there any specific requirements for these fans? Are there any requirements for activity and loyalty?

There are thousands of operational strategies. If the essence of the target is not identified first, the value of the final 10,000 fans to the enterprise may be very different.

During the specific interview, I will first give the candidates some specific scenarios, and then ask them, if you are asked to write a copy, how would you write it? What was your thought process like?

If the candidate will ask me in turn for more specific information, for example: which goal is the ultimate purpose of this copywriting, what kind of results need to be achieved, whether the results can be quantified, and how to measure the effectiveness of the copywriting. The pros and cons, and can give ideas for several candidate copywriters for ABC...then this kind of person is what I need.

Technical and tool-level abilities are easy to cultivate, but the ability to understand and grasp the essence requires years of knowledge accumulation, thinking and training to achieve.

▍Original thinking

Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Yes, especially for the future, knowledge is Access barriers will continue to become lower, and the ability to “create knowledge” will become more scarce.

Nowadays, I don’t think a person’s strong learning ability is an advantage at all. To be fair, everyone’s intelligence is not low. As long as you put some effort, 99% of the skills in this society are not difficult to learn. The most valuable thing is "creativity".

Google attaches great importance to creativity when recruiting talents. They believe that second-rate talents can guide people into a certain field, while only first-rate talents can open up a new unknown field.

Isn’t this true for operations (products)? Internet users are not so much concerned about the scarcity of attention, but what is more important is the scarcity of “mental cognition”. Today, an operation strategy and content positioning that completely lacks “uniqueness” and “innovation capabilities” simply cannot survive.

Take public accounts as an example. No matter what vertical field the public accounts are nowadays, the overall content quality has indeed been greatly improved compared to the past. However, the sources of content are actually the same ones that come and go, and they are highly homogeneous. change.

At this time, once a certain "original" public account (or IP) stands out immediately. For example, Papi sauce.

Therefore, the author believes that a potential operator must also have the ability to create new operating strategies. This is another threshold ability.

During specific interviews, I usually ask candidates: Have you done anything unique in your previous company? Or, what books, articles, and social phenomena have you read that touched you and triggered some new thinking?

People with truly creative talents are very good at being inspired by various phenomena and applying them to practice.

▍Almighty Will

This is a new requirement I recently added. For work in other positions, it may be enough to do your job well. However, this idea is becoming increasingly weak in the current Internet business environment. For example:

Internet products have evolved from peer competition to cross-border competition for user attention (for example, users will naturally play less games) (no time to read);

Users are becoming more mature and rational;

The Matthew effect is becoming more and more obvious, and the "traffic" monopoly of large companies continues to squeeze the living space of small teams;

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The barriers to product innovation almost no longer exist...

All these factors have put forward higher requirements for the "professionalization" of operations.

Professionalization means that operators need to understand the "interlocking" principle of operational strategies, which inevitably requires operators to have real experience in various operational positions: whether it is content operation, event planning, You must have front-line experience in promotion, user operations, and even customer service, so that you can create a three-dimensional product and user relationship diagram. Many of these things cannot be "told" to you by others.

Of course, when recruiting, we cannot require an excellent candidate with little operational experience to have all aspects of operational experience, but we need to confirm whether he has this desire.

In fact, an all-round talent usually has several unique characteristics: pursuit (not just focusing on short-term interests), self-motivation, and initiative.

After reading these three points, what do you think?

Think these requirements are harsh? My principle is: Recruiting any operation is based on the requirements of potential operational leaders. A mediocre person will definitely not be able to keep up with the pace in an elite team. After all, they will have to lead a team in the future. I never think that a general with 80 points can lead a team with 90 points.

Think such candidates are difficult to find? In fact, there are more domestic talents than imagined, but many companies care too much about irrelevant conditions such as "whether they have operational experience" and "whether they are from BAT" and self-screened out truly outstanding talents.

Actually, if I look back at the above three conditions in detail, I don’t even require “whether you have operational experience.” This is a lower threshold than what other companies require, right?

By the way, among the operation personnel I recruited later, the one with the most outstanding ability came from the traditional media industry and had no Internet genes at all, let alone operation experience.

In fact, to become an excellent operator requires very high comprehensive capabilities. But who says this isn't a great thing? If everyone in a position can be qualified casually, what is the value of this position?