艾瑞卡·喬伊·貝克曾在硅谷從事過眾多令人垂涎的工作，包括谷歌、Slack，目前擔(dān)任Patreon（連接藝術(shù)家與捐贈(zèng)粉絲的眾籌平臺(tái)）高級(jí)工程經(jīng)理。然而在1998年的時(shí)候，她還只是一名18歲的計(jì)算機(jī)怪才，在她夢(mèng)寐以求的學(xué)校上著夢(mèng)寐以求的課程，忍受著計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)教授的冷眼，努力地不讓眼淚流下來。

她出生于軍人家庭，來自于費(fèi)爾班克斯，是一名自學(xué)成才的機(jī)靈鬼，靠琢磨微軟Windows系統(tǒng)的注冊(cè)表，搗鼓電腦主機(jī)來消磨青少年的時(shí)光。她憑借自己的技能走出了阿拉斯基，來到了一所佛羅里達(dá)州的校園。學(xué)校離沙灘只有很短的車程。“那個(gè)地方冷的要命，我真的是呆夠了”，她回憶道。

這個(gè)初級(jí)班有上百名學(xué)生，但是作為班里兩名黑人學(xué)生中其中的一名以及唯一的女學(xué)生，貝克遭到了其他同學(xué)的疏遠(yuǎn)，而且對(duì)此感到十分痛苦。授課的白人教授對(duì)她的問題充耳不聞，但對(duì)待白人學(xué)生卻是滿腔熱忱。貝克說：“每次我與他交談的時(shí)候，他會(huì)很明確地告訴我，他覺得這不是我該來的地方。”涉世不深的她懷疑，這是不是暴風(fēng)雨來臨的前兆。“我覺得，好吧，可能他說的對(duì)。可能計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)并不適合我。”

一年之后，貝克退了學(xué)，回到了阿拉斯加。但她身上滿是能夠預(yù)示她未來成功的閃光點(diǎn)，唯獨(dú)就是沒有人去挖掘。

她的生父于佛羅里達(dá)州長(zhǎng)大，家里異常貧窮，有時(shí)候不得不逃學(xué)去路邊賣橘子，以賺取生活費(fèi)。10歲之前，她和家人搬了三次家，但卻在那些令其他孩子墮落的地方茁壯成長(zhǎng)。她對(duì)計(jì)算機(jī)系統(tǒng)的了解程度不輸于學(xué)校班里的任何同學(xué)。確實(shí)，這一專長(zhǎng)幫助她獲得了阿拉斯加大學(xué)系統(tǒng)的一個(gè)IT實(shí)習(xí)機(jī)會(huì)，她在從佛羅里達(dá)州回到故鄉(xiāng)后便加入了這一系統(tǒng)，并于隨后成為了正式員工。“那時(shí)候我還不到20歲，一年賺4.1萬美元，比我父親掙得還多”， 她用難以置信的口吻回憶道，“我打算沿著這條道路繼續(xù)走下去。”

2005年，貝克在Craigslist網(wǎng)站看到了谷歌的招聘廣告。2006年，她受聘成為了IT領(lǐng)域的技術(shù)人員。在接下來的幾年中，她迎來了事業(yè)上的大豐收，并得到了數(shù)次提拔，同時(shí)也遭遇了慘痛的挫折。經(jīng)理們對(duì)她的貢獻(xiàn)視而不見，對(duì)她的顧慮充耳不聞，再次讓她想到了當(dāng)初那個(gè)對(duì)她冷眼相待的教授。貝克說：“我無法說明確切的原因，也不知道為什么我每次都會(huì)和谷歌的機(jī)會(huì)失之交臂，但公司的大多數(shù)機(jī)遇的確與我無緣。”

9年之后，一次次的挫折和入職不利迫使她尋找新的出路。她在Slack and Patreon找到了更好的工作環(huán)境，公司的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)層在包容性方面采取了更為有力的舉措。她在這里為硅谷兩家熱門初創(chuàng)企業(yè)的飛速增長(zhǎng)做出了重要的貢獻(xiàn)，而且這一點(diǎn)絕非偶然。

如今，貝克成為了非營(yíng)利機(jī)構(gòu)的董事，這些機(jī)構(gòu)致力于幫助女孩和被忽視的少數(shù)族裔在科技行業(yè)中立足。她的成長(zhǎng)經(jīng)歷也為她提供了具有深遠(yuǎn)業(yè)務(wù)影響力的洞見。對(duì)面試者和面試官角色均有所體驗(yàn)的貝克說：“在科技行業(yè)，我們的面試流程一直都是為了尋找特定的人群。這類人通常是來自于固定幾所學(xué)校的白人。反正不是我這樣的。”而且，她也會(huì)坦誠(chéng)地對(duì)與她有著類似經(jīng)歷的人群說：也不是你這樣的。她說，如果要跨進(jìn)那道門，“你必須要做好準(zhǔn)備，向他們展示自己的獨(dú)到之處。”

這一現(xiàn)象不僅僅出現(xiàn)在科技行業(yè)：在每一家公司，人們都傾向于尋找完美的候選人，其參照對(duì)象就是組織構(gòu)架圖中那個(gè)高高在上的人物。Paradigm創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官說：“如果你只是尋找那樣的人，你肯定能找到。” Paradigm是一家咨詢公司，致力于讓公司變得更加包容。但是，這種自我復(fù)制、逐條核對(duì)式的方法有其固有的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)：公司可能會(huì)變得同質(zhì)化，并與世隔絕，最終會(huì)失去那些公司進(jìn)行創(chuàng)新和競(jìng)爭(zhēng)所需的洞見和理念。更為不幸的是，它將給社會(huì)結(jié)構(gòu)帶來威脅，進(jìn)一步擴(kuò)大經(jīng)濟(jì)精英與其他人之間的鴻溝。

這也是為什么越來越多的雇主和人才獵頭開始注意那些無法用標(biāo)準(zhǔn)認(rèn)證來衡量的潛在特征，而這種特征并不受種族、收入和階層的限制。杰夫·科爾文在談?wù)撨@一問題時(shí)指出，公司對(duì)于“受教育程度即代表能力”的理論愈發(fā)懷疑。它們尋找的是傳統(tǒng)評(píng)估準(zhǔn)則之外的成就：也就是“創(chuàng)客”元素，包括設(shè)計(jì)和發(fā)明、創(chuàng)業(yè)成就、豐富的志愿者活動(dòng)，或者從更寬泛的意義上來講，創(chuàng)造性地管理那些與生俱來、時(shí)而困苦的生活元素。就這一點(diǎn)而言， “Grit”（堅(jiān)毅之人）（該詞因2016年安吉拉·達(dá)克沃斯同名暢銷書而流行）成為了這方面一個(gè)熱門的縮略詞。它寬泛地指代勇氣、毅力、承受力、創(chuàng)造力、擁有解決問題的竅門，并愿意學(xué)習(xí)。

Backstage Capital創(chuàng)始人阿蘭·漢密爾頓說：“我會(huì)通過模式匹配的方式來尋找堅(jiān)毅之人”。Backstage Capital是致力于在公司初期階段進(jìn)行投資的基金，致力于為黑人、女性和性少數(shù)群體創(chuàng)業(yè)者提供資助。按照她自己的經(jīng)驗(yàn)來看，相對(duì)于那些從預(yù)科學(xué)校念到常青藤，再獲得MBA或更高學(xué)位的創(chuàng)業(yè)者，堅(jiān)毅型候選人能夠更好地接受反饋意見，更加努力地工作，并更快地從挫折的陰影中走出來。試想一下，有一位候選人，今年40歲，是一名黑人單身母親，在從事全職工作之余念完了大學(xué)。漢密爾頓指出，她應(yīng)該知道該如何規(guī)劃、如何解決問題、如何多線作戰(zhàn)，以及如何將25美分當(dāng)成1美元來花。“我敢打賭，她絕不會(huì)半途而廢。”

但堅(jiān)毅型人才也不是萬能藥。在仔細(xì)斟酌之前，對(duì)于堅(jiān)毅型人才的搜尋可能會(huì)成為“逐條核對(duì)”換湯不換藥的做法：如果沒有采取周密的舉措尋找強(qiáng)有力的候選人，并為其打造相應(yīng)的支持環(huán)境，最終的結(jié)果必然會(huì)令人失望。（它還有可能助長(zhǎng)一種扭曲的成見，即那些弱勢(shì)人群的成功依賴于白皮膚救世主的施舍）。這也是為什么《財(cái)富》建議對(duì)此進(jìn)行重新定義的原因：不要將堅(jiān)毅看作是艱難生活的解藥，而是看作對(duì)掌控生活復(fù)雜性的一種不懈追求，我們每個(gè)人都有這樣的經(jīng)歷。當(dāng)公司在招聘時(shí)能夠意識(shí)到這一復(fù)雜性時(shí)，雇主就會(huì)為缺乏晉升公司高層機(jī)會(huì)的人群（少數(shù)民族、居家父母、工薪階層的孩子和退伍軍人）提供顛覆性機(jī)遇。對(duì)于目前正處于激烈的人才爭(zhēng)奪戰(zhàn)中的整個(gè)世界來說，此舉有助于公司找到那些承受能力強(qiáng)，能夠創(chuàng)造性地去應(yīng)對(duì)各種障礙的人士。

貝克說，“那些在大好時(shí)光上好學(xué)校的人群會(huì)遇到賞識(shí)他的人，并拿到好公司的面試機(jī)會(huì)，這是他們的必經(jīng)之路，可謂是一馬平川。”那沒有機(jī)會(huì)接觸這條道路的人怎么辦？“他們的生活道路看起來是斜的，類似于對(duì)角線，他們不得不原路折回，而且他們會(huì)回到原點(diǎn)。但你知道嗎？獲得成功的正是這類人。”

公司很難找到這類求職者的部分原因在于愛走捷徑這一不良習(xí)慣。負(fù)責(zé)與這一慣性思維作斗爭(zhēng)的Salesforce首席平等官托尼·普羅菲特表示，“如果Salesforce每位員工的計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)學(xué)位僅來自于5所（同樣的）大學(xué)，那么公司的人才池將接近干涸。”同樣，員工的推薦通常也難以奏效。如果要讓一屋子頂級(jí)學(xué)校畢業(yè)的高分研究生推薦潛在的新同事，他們所提供的人選當(dāng)中很有可能滿是他們自己的復(fù)刻版。

Code2040社區(qū)動(dòng)員總監(jiān)米米·福克斯·梅爾頓指出，“我們經(jīng)常會(huì)聽到公司說，那個(gè)膚色的人群不會(huì)申請(qǐng)這個(gè)職位。”Code2040是一家非營(yíng)利性組織，專注于培養(yǎng)科技行業(yè)的黑人和拉丁裔領(lǐng)導(dǎo)。“公司必須弄明白‘沒有任何黑人’與‘我們不認(rèn)識(shí)任何黑人’之間的區(qū)別。”但問題在于，上面所提到的這些決策者們并不認(rèn)識(shí)任何單親媽媽，或來自于農(nóng)村的窮孩子。

新的策略，例如從有著悠久歷史的黑人大學(xué)、社區(qū)大學(xué)和勞動(dòng)力培養(yǎng)項(xiàng)目中招聘，正在擴(kuò)大求職人才池。但是這些策略無法幫助未來具有剛毅品格的潛在高管通過第一輪面試。對(duì)于雇主來說，訣竅在于意識(shí)到商業(yè)頭腦并不總是千篇一律的，并將這一理念正常化。決策者需要以不同的思維來看待所有的事情，從科學(xué)的簡(jiǎn)歷閱讀方法一直到高超的對(duì)話技巧。

為了在招聘時(shí)做到更加包容，公司在應(yīng)對(duì)偏見方面投入了大量的精力，因?yàn)檫@些偏見會(huì)讓有希望的候選人望而卻步。針對(duì)隱性偏見（固有印象潛意識(shí)地影響我們決定的方式）進(jìn)行培訓(xùn)正逐漸成為大型公司的必修課。雇主也在通過讓求職者消失來應(yīng)對(duì)偏見，即使用簡(jiǎn)歷篩來隱藏申請(qǐng)人的身份，或通過匿名的第三方評(píng)估平臺(tái)來杜絕面試官出現(xiàn)無意識(shí)偏好的可能性，例如查看求職者的示例代碼。

一旦人們進(jìn)入了面對(duì)面的面試環(huán)節(jié)之后，對(duì)面試流程進(jìn)行修改將為Paradigm的艾默生這樣的非傳統(tǒng)候選人提供一臂之力。確保參加面試的面試官來自于多元化的背景，并能夠?yàn)楹蜻x者提供一致的面試體驗(yàn)。提前把問題發(fā)給面試官，以供他們考慮，并幫助他們進(jìn)一步思考他們?nèi)绾尾拍軐⒆陨斫?jīng)驗(yàn)與公司的需求掛鉤。艾默生說：“面試并不一定非得以問問題的形式開展。”

就算求職者的LinkedIn頁面乏善可陳，我們也可以通過頗具創(chuàng)意的方式來了解其背后的真實(shí)故事。福利軟件開發(fā)公司Jellyvision人事負(fù)責(zé)人瑪麗·貝斯·維恩表示，她的公司并不怎么看重簡(jiǎn)歷，而是注重求職信。用她的話說就是，“如果從簡(jiǎn)歷看求職者并不適合這份工作，那么求職信便提供了另一個(gè)機(jī)會(huì)，來解釋他們?cè)诂F(xiàn)實(shí)當(dāng)中為什么能夠勝任這一工作的原因。”公司會(huì)把看好的求職者帶到公司進(jìn)行“實(shí)戰(zhàn)”，即加入某個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)開展真正的工作，為期一天。有一位求職者，曾做過保姆，申請(qǐng)招聘者崗位。具有諷刺意味的是，這位求職者的“實(shí)戰(zhàn)”包括查讀簡(jiǎn)歷和求職信，以及設(shè)計(jì)面試問題。她完成的非常出色。維恩解釋說，事實(shí)上，找她做保姆的那位客戶還是一家小公司的老板。她曾擔(dān)任這位客戶的多面手個(gè)人助理，這一未經(jīng)背書的經(jīng)歷為她最終斬獲這份工作打下了堅(jiān)實(shí)的基礎(chǔ)。

當(dāng)然，這種變通方法的能力也是有限的。Code2040的梅爾頓講述了在一家科技公司發(fā)生的事情：當(dāng)匯報(bào)某人在技能評(píng)估時(shí)的表現(xiàn)時(shí)，面試官在申請(qǐng)者的材料上寫道，“這個(gè)人不符合要求，他真的是很‘市井’。”梅爾頓表示，像這類反應(yīng)是“非常常見的”，是一種基于“文化契合度”的種族歧視，并以此為由導(dǎo)致候選人出局。這類反應(yīng)體現(xiàn)了根深蒂固的公司偏見，也意味著雇主有大量的機(jī)會(huì)與可能有能力勝任這一工作的人進(jìn)行溝通。

Jopwell的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人波特·布拉斯維爾認(rèn)為，“這些都不是什么復(fù)雜的事情。”Jobwell是一家在線求職平臺(tái)，幫助有色人種學(xué)生和青年專業(yè)人士尋找在大公司就業(yè)的機(jī)會(huì)。他說：“如果你來自于主流文化，并打算聘請(qǐng)有著不同背景的職員，那么你在與他們交談時(shí)就應(yīng)該回歸人性。”在實(shí)踐層面，這意味著不要老盯著蒼白的簡(jiǎn)歷，而是要看到可能性，并意識(shí)到申請(qǐng)人的經(jīng)歷可轉(zhuǎn)化為工作的動(dòng)力。他指出，“挖掘他們的故事”，因?yàn)椤叭绻麄兡茉谧约旱氖澜缰蝎@得成功，那么你就可以去思考，如何讓他們?cè)谀愕墓緮孬@成功。”

曾幾何時(shí)，馬庫斯·史蒂文森覺得念完高中感覺就像是一個(gè)無法企及的目標(biāo)。灣區(qū)長(zhǎng)大的他解釋說，“我的父母都沒有念完高中。”他曾立志要做一名運(yùn)動(dòng)員：他曾從事過自己最喜愛的籃球運(yùn)動(dòng)，然后轉(zhuǎn)戰(zhàn)橄欖球，但傷病扼殺了他的激情。與此同時(shí)，他還不愿意回到學(xué)校。他說，“我很失落，也很迷茫，需要幫助。”在沒有任何外援的情況下，他通過自身的努力進(jìn)入了一家社區(qū)大學(xué)，拿到了社會(huì)科學(xué)的大專文憑。然而，當(dāng)史蒂文森在一家夫妻雜貨店做全職工作時(shí)，獲取學(xué)士學(xué)位的成本讓他望而卻步。就在這個(gè)時(shí)候，一名精通電子的朋友向他介紹了Year Up，后者是一個(gè)嚴(yán)苛的勞動(dòng)力培養(yǎng)項(xiàng)目，專注于培養(yǎng)城市青年。

史蒂文森加入了這一項(xiàng)目，并全身心地投入到了技術(shù)和專業(yè)技能課程的學(xué)習(xí)當(dāng)中，他還成為了當(dāng)?shù)豑oastmasters公共演講部的會(huì)長(zhǎng)。他說，“這是我人生中最美好也是最困難的一段經(jīng)歷。”他憑借自己的表現(xiàn)獲得了參加Salesforce交流活動(dòng)的邀請(qǐng)。在觥籌交錯(cuò)的環(huán)境中，他“微笑著”向首席平等官普羅菲特介紹了自己。史蒂文森講述了自己對(duì)生活的失望以及自己的決心，并藉此打動(dòng)了普羅菲特。這名23歲的年輕人可以稱得上是研究“生活復(fù)雜性”的典型案例，其所具有的毅力很難從簡(jiǎn)歷中看出來。普羅菲特說，“他為自己選擇了一條不同的道路，并希望成為楷模。”如今，這條道路與Salesforce匯合了，史蒂文森在普羅菲特手下工作，擔(dān)任項(xiàng)目協(xié)調(diào)員。最近，他主持了有Congressional Black Caucus組織（由黑人國(guó)會(huì)議員組成的組織——譯注）參與的專題討論會(huì)，展示了自己的才華。

像Year Up這樣的勞動(dòng)力培養(yǎng)項(xiàng)目對(duì)于彌補(bǔ)堅(jiān)毅型求職者與《財(cái)富》500強(qiáng)企業(yè)之間的鴻溝發(fā)揮著至關(guān)重要的作用。盡管這類機(jī)構(gòu)幾十年前便已存在，但新的機(jī)構(gòu)仍在迅速地涌現(xiàn)，尤其是在科技領(lǐng)域，因?yàn)檫@一領(lǐng)域?qū)τ诳伤苄詮?qiáng)、承受力強(qiáng)的人才有著巨大的需求。在與Year Up合作之后，Salesforce嘗到了甜頭，并開始與德勤合作，在Salesforce第二大業(yè)務(wù)中心印第安納州開展一個(gè)名為Pathfinder的實(shí)驗(yàn)項(xiàng)目。該項(xiàng)目致力于培養(yǎng)非傳統(tǒng)候選人從事軟件開發(fā)和數(shù)據(jù)管理方面的職業(yè)，同時(shí)涵蓋領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力培養(yǎng)和職業(yè)技能培訓(xùn)，這些候選人包括“機(jī)會(huì)青年”（16-24歲擠不上學(xué)也不工作的青年）、退伍軍人和回歸工作崗位的居家父母。項(xiàng)目旨在培訓(xùn)那些有動(dòng)力，但是缺乏相關(guān)資質(zhì)認(rèn)證（無法通過傳統(tǒng)的簡(jiǎn)歷篩選所需的認(rèn)證）的人士，從而幫助他們掀開人生的新篇章。

與此同時(shí)，其他的公司將生活復(fù)雜性這一因素也納入到人才搜尋的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)當(dāng)中。咨詢公司包容性招聘業(yè)務(wù)美洲總監(jiān)肯·博伊爾輾轉(zhuǎn)于全美各地，拜訪培養(yǎng)本科和碩士的商學(xué)院，希望激發(fā)更多有色人種學(xué)生對(duì)會(huì)計(jì)這個(gè)職業(yè)的興趣。GPA分?jǐn)?shù)達(dá)到3.5或以上的有為學(xué)生將獲邀申請(qǐng)加入安永的Launch實(shí)習(xí)項(xiàng)目。博伊爾的付出得到了回報(bào)，2017財(cái)年，少數(shù)族裔占安永初級(jí)職位招聘員工人數(shù)（約9200名）的39%，占其實(shí)習(xí)生人數(shù)的41%。博伊爾自己的職業(yè)生涯也是始于安永實(shí)習(xí)崗位，目前已在安永工作了27個(gè)年頭。在到訪校園期間，他會(huì)在交流伊始介紹自己的堅(jiān)毅經(jīng)歷。“我從12歲開始工作，高中上學(xué)光單程就需要花1個(gè)半小時(shí)的時(shí)間，作業(yè)是在大巴上做的”，成長(zhǎng)于皇后區(qū)的他說道，“我對(duì)[學(xué)生]說，‘成功取決于你所經(jīng)歷的那些瑣事，這些瑣事往往無人關(guān)注。’”

這些瑣事幫助奈利·左瑞拉獲得了安永的工作。左瑞拉于2016年加入安永，擔(dān)任安永康涅狄格州斯坦福德辦事處的保證業(yè)務(wù)主管，負(fù)責(zé)確保客戶財(cái)務(wù)報(bào)告的準(zhǔn)確性。對(duì)于一名美籍巴拿馬人來說，這份工作僅僅是大好職業(yè)前程的一個(gè)開端。她說：“我曾在年輕時(shí)把自己想象成一位‘女老板’”。作為第一代美籍巴拿馬人，左瑞拉來自于布朗克斯一個(gè)愛意融融的家庭，他的父親打零工，母親開了一家美甲店，左瑞拉在店里負(fù)責(zé)前臺(tái)和預(yù)定工作。“有時(shí)候我依然會(huì)做這個(gè)活”，她笑著說道。左瑞拉在曼哈頓的佩斯大學(xué)讀書時(shí)加入了Launch實(shí)習(xí)項(xiàng)目。在參加從實(shí)習(xí)轉(zhuǎn)為全職工作的面試時(shí)，安永安排了一個(gè)和她性格類似的合伙人艾米莉亞·卡珀拉擔(dān)任面試官。左瑞拉在操作系統(tǒng)中提到了奉獻(xiàn)精神、自給自足和關(guān)愛，而異常精明的卡珀拉則詢問了這些價(jià)值觀對(duì)她的職業(yè)道德和夢(mèng)想都帶來了什么樣的影響。“她問我我的動(dòng)力是什么，并理解了我所做的很多事情都是為了我的家人，為了報(bào)答他們的恩情”，左瑞拉回憶道。這位未來的女老板很清楚，“即使我看起來沒有這種特質(zhì)，但她卻看到了這一點(diǎn)，她讀懂了我。”

要在對(duì)話中真正發(fā)掘奈利和馬庫斯這類人的亮點(diǎn)，最難的地方在于，交談雙方都有一顆善解人意的心，而且相互信任。“關(guān)鍵在于真實(shí)性”，普羅菲特說道，“這意味著打開心扉，講述自己的故事，并讓人們了解你。”而且這類對(duì)話絕不能在提供就業(yè)機(jī)會(huì)之后就戛然而止。這種對(duì)話對(duì)于曾經(jīng)身處谷歌的艾瑞卡·喬伊·貝克來說是一種奢求，然而，那些具有前瞻性的公司應(yīng)將其納入管理流程。

以星巴克為例，這家公司在其龐大的員工隊(duì)伍中大力推行多元化政策，并聘用難民，同時(shí)在窮困潦倒的有色人種聚居區(qū)開設(shè)分店，例如密蘇里州的弗格森和皇后區(qū)的牙買加。當(dāng)去年4月上任的星巴克首席執(zhí)行官凱文·約翰森到訪店面接觸雇員時(shí)，他摒棄了采訪或講演這種方式，而是隨意地與員工邊喝咖啡邊聊天，一組約6個(gè)人。他們以“你是怎么來星巴克工作的”這個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單問題作為開場(chǎng)。“他們講述了一些令人吃驚的故事，并分享了他們生活中的辛酸往事”，約翰森說道。他們還分享了曾經(jīng)遇到的困境，獲得的幫助，以及他們對(duì)未來的期許。“在這里，你應(yīng)該用‘心’去聆聽，而這一點(diǎn)”，他說道，“會(huì)讓你感同身受并對(duì)其他人產(chǎn)生同情心。”

這種能量會(huì)提振公司的業(yè)績(jī)，約翰森說道：如果雇員能夠在公司感受到更多的溫暖，客戶亦會(huì)如此。同時(shí)，效仿他的經(jīng)理也會(huì)成為更強(qiáng)有力的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者。“你會(huì)以另一種眼光來看待風(fēng)險(xiǎn)”，他承諾道，“而且你也會(huì)做出更好的決策。”（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

本文刊載于2018年2月1日期的《財(cái)富》雜志，標(biāo)題《新的求職王牌——堅(jiān)毅的性格》

譯者：馮豐

審稿：夏林

Erica Joy Baker has had a succession of dream jobs in Silicon Valley—at Google, at Slack, and now as a senior engineering manager at Patreon, a crowdfunding platform that connects artists with donor-fans. But back in the day, in 1998, she was just an 18-year-old computer geek, sitting in her dream class at her dream school, getting the stink eye from her computer science professor and trying not to cry.

The military brat from Fairbanks had been a self-taught tinkerer, whiling away adolescent hours poking around Microsoft Windows registries and prying the backs off computer cases. Her skills earned her a ticket out of Alaska, to a Florida campus just a short drive from the beach. “I was super fed up with being in a seriously cold place,” she recalls.

But as one of two black students and the only black woman in an entry-level class of hundreds, Baker felt a cold shoulder and took it personally. The professor, a white man, ignored her questions, even as he engaged enthusiastically with white male students. “Every time I talked to him, he made it clear that he didn’t think I should be there,” she says. Her teenage brain wondered if this was a sign of things to come. “I thought, Well, maybe he’s right. Maybe computer science wasn’t for me.”

Baker quit school after a year and went back to Alaska. But so many of the elements that hinted at her future success were hidden in plain sight—if only someone had bothered to ask about them.

Her biological dad, who grew up in Florida, had been so poor that he sometimes skipped school to sell oranges by the roadside to raise cash for food. She moved with her family three times before she was 10, but she thrived where other kids crumpled. And she had a knowledge bank about computer systems on par with any of her college classmates. Indeed, that expertise helped her land an IT internship in the University of Alaska system, where she enrolled after returning home—which soon became a real job. “I wasn’t even 20, and I was making $41,000 a year, more than my [step]father,” she recalls, still sounding incredulous. “And I planned to keep going.”

In 2005, Baker came across a Google job ad on Craigslist; by 2006 she had been hired as an IT field tech. The ensuing years brought big wins and promotions, but also stinging setbacks, as managers waved off her contributions or ignored her concerns, giving her something like the professor’s stink eye all over again. “I can’t say for sure why, or that Google missed every opportunity with me, but they did miss most of them,” Baker says.

After nine years, the sum of the fizzles and false starts led her to look elsewhere. She found better environments at Slack and Patreon, where leadership made a stronger effort to be inclusive—and where, not coincidentally, she became a key player in the exponential growth of two of the Valley’s hotter startups.

Today, Baker is a board member for nonprofits that help girls and underrepresented minorities get a foothold in tech. And her journey has given her insight with profound implications for businesses. “In the tech industry, our interview processes have always been geared to finding a specific kind of person,” says Baker, who has been on both sides of the interview table. “That person usually ends up being a white guy from a very specific set of schools. Like, not me.” And, as she candidly tells gatherings of folks like herself: not you either. To get in the door, she says, “you have to be prepared to show them who you are.”

It’s not just tech: In every company, there’s a tendency to cling to an ideal candidate, exemplified by the person at the top of the org chart. “If you only look for that person, you will find them,” says Joelle Emerson, founder and CEO of Paradigm, a consultancy focused on making companies more inclusive. But there’s a danger inherent in the self-replicating, check-the-boxes approach: Companies risk becoming homogeneous and insular, cut off from the insights and ideas they need to innovate and compete. More ominously, it’s a threat to the social fabric, widening the divide between the economic elite and everybody else.

That’s why growing numbers of employers and talent scouts are considering signs of potential that standard credentials don’t capture—and that transcend lines of race, income, and class. As Geoff Colvin notes in this issue, they’re increasingly skeptical of educational attainment as a proxy for performance. They’re looking for accomplishments that fall outside conventional rubrics: “maker” portfolios of designs and inventions; entrepreneurial achievements; a rich volunteer life; and, more broadly, an ability to creatively manage the sometimes-difficult elements of the life they were born into. In this search, “grit,” the term popularized in the 2016 bestseller of the same name by psychology professor Angela Duckworth, has become the hot shorthand. It’s loosely defined as courage, perseverance, resilience, creativity, a knack for problem–solving and an openness to learning.

“I pattern-match for grit,” says Arlan Hamilton, founder of Backstage Capital, an early-stage investment fund that backs black, female, and LGBTQ entrepreneurs. In her experience, grittier candidates accept feedback better, work harder, and bounce back faster from setbacks than entrepreneurs who went from prep school to the Ivy League to an MBA and beyond. Imagine a candidate who’s a 40-year-old, black single mom who graduated from college while working full-time. She probably knows some things about planning, resolve, multitasking, and stretching a quarter into a dollar, Hamilton says. “And I can make a good bet that she won’t give up.”

Grit isn’t a panacea. Unless carefully considered, the search for grit can become a check-the-box diversity exercise of its own: Without thoughtful efforts to find strong candidates and create environments that support them, it’s doomed to disappoint. (It can also fuel ugly stereotypes in which success for the downtrodden depends on charity from white saviors.) That’s why Fortune recommends a reframing: Think of grit less as an antidote to a hard-knock life and more as an ongoing quest to master life complexity—an experience all of us share. When recognition of that complexity shapes hiring, it opens transformative opportunities to people from groups underrepresented in top professions: ethnic minorities, stay-at-home parents, working-class kids, veterans. And in a world locked in a tight global battle for talent, it helps companies find people who are resilient and creative in the face of obstacles.

“People who go to the right schools at the right time, get to know the right people and get the right interview, that’s their path, and they glide over it,” says Baker. The people who didn’t have access to that path? “Maybe their life looks slanted, or diagonal, or they had to double back, but they got to that same place. You know what? Those are the people who succeed.”

Companies struggle to find such candidates in part because of bad-habit shortcuts. “If you said everyone at Salesforce had to have a computer science degree from [the same] five schools, the talent pool would be super-shallow,” says Tony Prophet, chief equality officer at Salesforce, whose job involves combating that reflex. Referrals, similarly, often fail to deliver. Ask a roomful of high-achieving, top-college graduates to find potential new coworkers, and they’ll likely deliver a binder full of candidates who look like themselves.

“What we hear often from companies is that people of color aren’t applying,” says Mimi Fox Melton, director of community mobilization for Code2040, a nonprofit focused on developing black and Latinx leadership in tech. “They have to learn to make a distinction between ‘there aren’t any black people,’ and ‘we don’t know any black people.’?” And odds are those same decision-makers don’t know any single moms, or poor kids from rural counties.

New tactics, like recruiting from historically black universities, community colleges and workforce development programs, are widening the applicant pool. But they won’t help the next gritty executive-in-the-rough make it past the first interview. The trick, for employers, is to normalize the notion that business acumen doesn’t always come in the same forms. Decision-makers need to think differently about everything from the science of résumé-reading to the fine art of conversation.

Much of the fight for inclusive hiring has focused on battling preconceptions that prevent interesting candidates from getting in the door. Training about implicit bias, the way stereotypes unconsciously affect our choices, is becoming the norm at larger companies. Employers are also attacking bias by making people disappear—hiding applicants’ identities with résumé screens, or using anonymized third-party assessment platforms to eliminate the chance that interviewers will show unintentional favoritism while, say, reviewing an applicant’s sample code.

Once you reach the face-to-face stage, retooling the interview process can help nontraditional candidates, says Paradigm’s Emerson. Make sure that candidates meet a diverse panel of interviewers who deliver a uniform experience to everyone. Give them questions they can reflect on ahead of time, to help them think more deeply about how their experiences might dovetail with a company’s needs. “Interviews don’t have to be quizzes,” says Emerson.

And there are creative ways to get to know the real person lurking behind a meager LinkedIn page. Mary Beth Wynn, head of people for Jellyvision, a benefits software maker, says her company de-emphasizes résumés in favor of the cover letter, which she says is “an opportunity to explain why, if their résumé doesn’t look like a fit for the job, they actually are.” Promising candidates are brought in for “auditions,” joining a team for a day to do real work. One applicant, who worked as a nanny, applied for a recruiter job. The audition included, ironically, scanning résumés and cover letters, as well as designing interview questions. She killed it. It turned out her nanny client also owned a small business, Wynn explains; her uncredited experience as the client’s multitasking personal assistant prepared her nicely for the job she was ultimately hired for.

Such workarounds can go only so far, of course. Melton, of Code2040, describes an episode at one tech firm: When reporting how a subject fared during a technical skills assessment, the interviewer noted on the applicant’s file, “He’s not qualified, he’s really ‘street.’?” Melton says reactions like this are “incredibly common,” a racist dismissal based on “culture fit.” Such reactions reflect entrenched corporate biases—and squander opportunities for employers to connect with people who may well have the tools to do the job.

“None of this is rocket science,” says Porter Braswell, cofounder of Jopwell, an online job platform that connects students and young professionals of color to big employers. “If you’re from the majority culture, and you’re trying to hire someone different from you, you need to have a human-type conversation,” he says. On a practical level, that means looking up from a skimpy résumé and seeing possibility, being open to how an applicant’s experiences are signposts of strength. It’s crucial to “get those stories out,” he says, because “if they have achieved success in their world, you should be able to figure out how they can achieve success in yours.”

There were times when just getting through high school felt like an unattainable goal for Marcus Stevenson. “Neither of my parents did,” explains the Bay Area native. His life plan was an athletic career: He played basketball, his great love, then switched to the gridiron, but injuries snuffed out the exhilaration. School, meanwhile, left a bad taste in his mouth. “I was lost and confused and needed a push,” he says. When none came from outside, he provided it himself, making it to community college, where he earned an associate degree in social science. Stevenson was daunted by the cost of a bachelor’s degree, however, and he was working full-time at a mom-and-pop grocery store when a techie friend told him about Year Up, a rigorous workforce development program focused on urban youth.

Stevenson got in and took a full load of technical and professional-skills classes; he also became president of the local Toastmasters public-speaking group. “It was one of the greatest, hardest experiences of my life,” he says. His performance earned him an invitation to a Salesforce networking event, where, amid canapés and chitchat, he “got [his] smile on” and introduced himself to Prophet, the equality officer. Stevenson’s story of disappointment and determination won Prophet over—the 23-year-old was a case study in life complexity, with strengths a résumé would only hint at. “He put himself on a different path and wanted to be a role model,” says Prophet. Today that path runs through Salesforce, where Stevenson works for Prophet as a program coordinator—and recently showed his poise by leading a panel discussion in front of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Workforce development groups like Year Up are crucial to bridging gaps between grit candidates and Fortune 500 companies. While such organizations have been around for generations, new ones are sprouting rapidly, especially in tech, where the demand for flexible, resilient talent grows by the hour. Salesforce’s experiences with Year Up encouraged the company to partner with Deloitte on a pilot program called Pathfinder, in Indiana, home of Salesforce’s second-biggest hub. Pathfinder prepares nontraditional candidates—including “opportunity youth” (people between ages 16 and 24 who are neither in school nor working), veterans, and stay-at-home parents returning to work—for careers in software development and data management, with leadership development and professional skills training included. It’s designed to train people who have the drive but not the credentials to get through a traditional résumé screen, helping them reach the next level.

Other companies, meanwhile, are integrating the hunt for life complexity in their talent searches. Ken Bouyer, Americas director of inclusiveness recruiting for consultancy EY, crisscrosses the country to visit undergrad and graduate business schools, aiming to make accounting more attractive to students of color. Promising students with a 3.5 GPA or better are invited to apply to EY’s Launch internship program. Something in Bouyer’s universe is working: In fiscal 2017, ethnic minorities made up 39% of EY’s roughly 9,200 entry-level hires and 41% of its intern hires. Bouyer himself started as an EY intern—and stayed 27 years. On his campus visits, he starts conversations in which he shares his own grit. “I’ve been working since I was 12 years old, commuted to high school an hour and a half each way, doing my homework on the bus,” says the Queens native. “I tell [students], ‘Success is about the little things you do when nobody else is looking.’?”

Little things helped Nelly Zorrilla earn a place at EY. Zorrilla has worked since 2016 as an assurance senior in EY’s Stamford, Conn., office, where she helps clients ensure their financial reporting is accurate. For the -Panamanian-American, it’s just the opening act of a great career. “I pictured myself as a ‘boss lady’ at a young age,” she says. Zorrilla is a first-generation American from a tight-knit family in the Bronx—her father did odd jobs, and her mother owns a nail salon, where Zorrilla ran the desk and booked appointments. “Sometimes I still do,” she says, laughing. Zorrilla became a Launch intern while studying at Pace University in Manhattan. When it was time to interview for a move from internship to a full-time position, EY matched her with a kindred spirit, a partner named Amelia Caporale. Sacrifice, self-sufficiency, and love are in Zorrilla’s operating system, and Caporale was astute enough to probe for insights about how those values shaped her work ethic and her dreams. “She asked about what motivated me, and understood how much of what I do is for my family, to thank them,” recalls Zorrilla. The future boss lady was evident, “even if I didn’t look the part. And she saw that. She saw me.”

The hard thing about really talking—having conversations where a Nelly Zorrilla or a Marcus Stevenson can shine—is that it requires both speakers to be vulnerable, to trust each other. “It comes down to authenticity,” says Prophet. “That means opening up, telling your own story, and letting people see you.” And those conversations can’t stop with the job offer. They’re the kind of talks that Erica Joy Baker feels she was missing at Google—and the ones that forward-thinking companies are building into their management processes.

Consider Starbucks, which has pushed to diversify its huge workforce, hiring refugees and opening stores in economically neglected communities of color like Ferguson, Mo., and Jamaica, Queens. When Kevin Johnson, Starbucks’ CEO since April, makes field visits to get to know his employees, he eschews interviews or presentations in favor of informal talks, over coffee, with groups of six or so. They start with a simple prompt: How did you get to Starbucks? “The most amazing stories are told, and people share very vulnerable things about their lives,” Johnson says. Where they’ve struggled, where they’ve been helped, what they hope the future holds. “It’s where you learn to listen with your heart.” And that, he adds, “l(fā)eads to empathy and compassion for others.”

The dynamic flows to the bottom line, Johnson says: When employees feel more welcome, so do customers. But managers who follow his example become stronger leaders too. “You’ll think about risk differently,” he promises. “You will make better decisions.”

A version of this article appears in the Feb. 1, 2018 issue of Fortune with the headline “Grit Is the New MBA.”