How to identify scientific and technological innovation talents through interviews?

The importance of innovation cannot be overemphasized. Enterprise innovation is everywhere, such as technological innovation, technological innovation, management innovation, marketing innovation and so on. Among them, technological product innovation is the main aspect, and recruiting outstanding technological innovation talents is the top priority. The innovative ability of technicians is undoubtedly an important core competitiveness of enterprises.

However, it is easier said than done. In more than 20 years of technical and technical management work, I have been thinking and trying to recruit outstanding technical talents, especially those with innovative spirit. When it comes to "innovation", everyone will think of the innovative story of "suddenly realizing" like the law of gravity when the apple falls head-down. The word "innovation" seems mysterious, confusing and difficult to quantify and evaluate. Interviewers all want to "have a pair of eyes, so that I can see innovative talents clearly", but most enterprises still rely on luck and sixth sense to recruit innovative talents. In fact, there is no essential difference between "innovation" and other abilities often examined in interviews, such as teamwork and communication influence, which can be identified by specific interview questions.

To identify innovative talents, we must first analyze what key skills or behaviors innovative talents have and what characteristics they have; For example, you can think outside the box; ; Then how can you say that you have this trait? Be more creative and see things that others can't. This kind of thinking is still too vague. In practical work, I draw lessons from the method in the book The Innovator's Gene, and divide the innovation ability into two parts:

1) Basic abilities, including professional knowledge and experience, adaptability, learning ability and adaptability;

2) Innovative behavior based on contact thinking is embodied in the ability to conduct contact thinking through questioning, observation, communication and experiment.

Select innovative talents through the following four aspects:

I. Professional knowledge and experience

Innovation, whether subversive or gradual, is not imagined, but promoted, improved or subverted based on solid industry and professional knowledge and scientific research methods. Therefore, we can ask questions in the interview:

In view of school recruitment: Can you introduce the concept of XXX (choose the one related to the recruitment position) and illustrate with examples how to apply this concept and theory to practice (study, scientific research, internship or life)?

For social recruitment: can you give an innovative achievement that you are proud of in your work? What basic professional knowledge have you used? What scientific research methods have been adopted? What impact has it brought to the company? ?

Second, adaptability and learning ability

At present, the commercial society is changing and developing rapidly, and new knowledge and methods emerge one after another. No matter how experienced a person is, it is impossible for him to experience all the challenges we will face in the future, and it is impossible to master all the knowledge we will use in advance. Therefore, in the past, we often put forward the requirement of "having XXX years' work experience" in recruitment notices, emphasizing that the evaluation method of talents based on experience should be changed in the era of VUCA, and the basic qualities that innovators must possess, such as the ability to adapt to changes, the ability to learn new things, and curiosity, should be the focus of investigation.

1. Investigate adaptability: What are you going to do if the requirements of customers or enterprises suddenly change in the middle of product development at hand? Please give examples of past experience.

2. Examine your learning ability: If the task you are accepting now is a technical field that you are not familiar with, how are you going to start? Please give examples of past experience.

3. Investigate curiosity: Can you give a recent example to illustrate what new knowledge you have learned in your technical field that you didn't know before? How did you study and through what channels did you get it? How does this knowledge help you in your present job?

Third, toughness and the ability to overcome their own inertia. Few ideas will shine when they first come into being, and the first attempt is a great success; More is Edison's day after day, hard and even boring experiments. Most innovations are unsuccessful, and it is difficult to persist without sufficient resilience. Moreover, in reality, we sometimes have to do some jobs that are not so interesting. At this time, we still have to overcome inertia and strive for the best results. To test this ability, we can ask:

1. Have you ever been "cornered" or even failed in the research and development process of a project? What was the specific situation at that time, how did you react and how did you do it?

2. You are responsible for the research and development of a project, and the progress is not smooth. The management decided to stop this project and transfer you to another project, but you thought it would be dark before dawn and you should have a chance to make great achievements, but the management didn't buy it. What would you do? Please share a practical example in this regard.

3. Tell me about your past experience of being assigned to do a project you didn't like. How did you handle it at that time?

Fourth, the ability based on connected thinking

Most of innovators' inventions are not brand-new, and innovation is increasingly happening across fields, technologies or markets. Combining the collected ideas in a new way, or transplanting common sense in one field to other fields, will form something new. Innovators should not only be good at combination (Lego method) and make good use of "stones from other mountains can attack jade", but also have the ability to "zoom in and out", which can not only go deep into specific cases and understand their essence; Can come out again, see * * * from the case, forming an overall solution. In short, innovators can connect fields, problems and ideas that others think are irrelevant. Although it is difficult to measure the contact thinking ability in detail, it can be judged by investigating the behavioral skills that promote the contact thinking ability, including asking questions, observing, communicating and experimenting.

1. Asking questions: Asking questions is the starting point for the formation of problems, and it also shows the courage to challenge the status quo. Typical innovators often ask, "What's the situation?" Then he asked, "What if ...? "。 The purpose of the interview is to capture whether the candidate reflects this feature:

What are the deep-rooted ideas in the industry about what consumers want?

What would you do? Give an example of you challenging the status quo and continuing to innovate.

Please give an example to illustrate, in the face of a recognized "mature product" or "imperfect, but only so" product, will you accept or question it? What are you going to do if in doubt?

2. Observation: Innovators need to carefully observe customers, products, services, technologies and companies around them, gain insights and ideas on new ways of doing things through observation, and strive to find the tasks and goals that customers need to complete, and how our products can better help customers realize their wishes. This requires a sense of substitution, observing customers who try to complete tasks in different situations, gaining insight into what they really want to accomplish, observing people, programs, companies or technologies, and finding solutions that can be applied to other situations.

How did you get the development requirements before developing the product? Please give an example.

Do you often go to see clients? Can you share an example of how customers use your products that you have learned from them?

3. Communication: Innovators will go out of their own industries and fields to meet people with different backgrounds and viewpoints and broaden their knowledge. Innovators spend time and energy searching and testing ideas through extensive interpersonal networks, such as participating in industry activities, communicating with experts, establishing their own creative communities, listening to the opinions of laymen, and so on, so as to draw completely different views.

When you encounter difficulties in product development, how do you seek help from others?

What are the books, articles, magazines, websites and other resources that you often read or pay special attention to? What did you learn from it? How to apply it in work? Please specify.

4. Experiment: The last and most important behavior of innovators is "hands-on", trying new experiments, trying new ideas and constantly testing new hypotheses. "Staring at the computer every day, you can't innovate." The core of innovation lies in action, so innovators will develop products and businesses as soon as possible and then observe the market reaction. They like to put new products, procedures and business ideas into the market, see what the results are, and constantly modify their experiments. This is especially true in the chemical industry I am engaged in, because this industry is essentially experimental science. In the interview, you can refer to the following questions:

If you have an idea, what will you do next? Please give an example. (Explore whether candidates often conduct small-scale experiments to test new ideas)

How long have you been in the lab? What kind of experiments do you usually do in the laboratory? (Check whether it is just a routine experiment or an exploratory experiment)

There are different opinions on whether innovative talents can be identified and how to examine their innovative ability. But I always believe that innovative features are not illusory, and evidence can be obtained through effective inquiry. If the candidate answers specifically and comes from practical experience, it is likely to be an innovative talent. If you are vague and list all other people's examples, it's just a show. Finally, it is emphasized that it is not enough for innovative talents to implement innovation and succeed in enterprises. Other characteristics, such as teamwork spirit, matching with corporate culture and existing teams, should be considered comprehensively in the interview. It is not easy to recruit innovative talents. I hope every interviewer can have a pair of eyes and discover his own creative talent! ?