- Many hiring managers today are looking for adaptability in job candidates.
- Adaptability refers to a person's comfort with change, plus their willingness to develop new skills and try different work styles.
- As organizations across industries struggle to stay relevant amid digital disruption, leaders are placing greater value on adaptability in their employees.
- To assess a candidate's adaptability, hiring managers look for cross-functional work experience, excitement about learning, and the ability to work without hand-holding from their boss.
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Adaptability is a key trait in the workplace of the future.
If you want a job at a company like Microsoft, Mondelez, or Canada Goose, be prepared to show the hiring manager that you're excited about learning and experimenting, and that you can take a new idea and run with it.
Fast-paced work environments and constant experimentation are typically the province of tech companies. (Recall Facebook's one-time emphasis on "failing fast.") Now, more established organizations are using similar strategies in an effort to stay relevant amid digital disruption in their industries.
In a 2019 KPMG survey of CEOs in the US, 68% agreed that if their organization moved too slowly, it'd eventually be bankrupt. A 2019 report from staffing and recruiting firm ManpowerGroup cites "learnability," or "the ability and desire to quickly grow and adapt one's skillset to stay employable for the long term," as the key skill future employers will be looking for.
And at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, multiple executives shared their plans for "upskilling," or training their workforce on new technologies, Business Insider's Joe Ciolli reported.
Organizations' emphasis on learning and moving quickly translates directly to hiring practices: Execs are looking for people who thrive amid constant change. And while adaptability might seem like a vague buzzword, execs and HR experts have come up with some concrete strategies to measure it.
If you're looking for a job — or if you want to stay employed — here are three questions to ask yourself to assess your own adaptability.
Do you see challenges as an opportunity to grow and develop?
Adaptability is more of an attitude than a specific suite of skills.
At professional services firm EY Global, leaders pay more attention to helping employees develop this attitude than to organizing formal training. As Andy Baldwin, managing partner at EY, told Business Insider's Cadie Thompson at the World Economic Forum, relevant job skills "are constantly going to change." Adaptability, he added, "is actually more of a mindset around this notion of lifelong learning."
Baldwin mentioned that about 75,000 EY Global employees have earned self-learning badges by completing online courses on analytics, blockchain, and emerging technologies. The company is shifting their focus away from academic credentials and instead wants to cultivate a positive attitude toward learning among its employees, Baldwin said.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella credits its record performance to an emphasis on growth mindset. Growth mindset is a psychological term based on research by Stanford professor Carol Dweck, and it's closely linked to adaptability.
If you approach challenges with a growth mindset, you see them as opportunities to learn and develop; if you approach challenges with a fixed mindset, you might assume you'll fail. Dweck's findings suggest that people who exhibit a growth mindset are more successful at work, and in their personal relationships.
Microsoft's chief people officer Kathleen Hogan previously told Business Insider that you can measure growth mindset by asking a job candidate about a time when they failed. "If they're willing to acknowledge when they failed and how they learned from it," Hogan said, that's a good sign. If they say, "I've never failed," it might be a red flag.
What skills have you learned in different roles that you would apply to this job?
The nonlinear career path has replaced the corporate ladder. Professionals who bounce around between different functions, companies, or even industries are often more successful (and more appealing to employers) than those who have done the same thing for years.
From the job-seeker's perspective, that doesn't necessarily mean your resume should include stints at a dozen different organizations and roles in sales, marketing, and graphic design. LinkedIn's former VP of talent Steve Cadigan previously told Business Insider that candidates can demonstrate their learnability simply by talking about past situations in which "you faced something new, you learned it, and you applied it."
For example, maybe you had to learn a new programming language in your last job. Or, if you work in media, maybe you've become adept at using social media and SEO techniques to promote your stories.
If you're applying for a job in a field where you don't have much experience, it helps to emphasize your transferable skills. These are the things you learned in one industry that will help you succeed in another, and that will allow you to bring a fresh perspective without feeling completely lost. Recruiting expert Jay Rosenzweig wrote on Business Insider that he looks for transferable skills in all candidates, including leadership, communication, problem-solving, and creativity.
Philip Lang, cofounder and CEO of real estate brokerage Triplemint, previously told Business Insider that the "common thread" among his longest tenured employees is adaptability.
To suss out adaptability in a job interview, Lang recommends asking a candidate what they were hired to do in their last role, and what they actually ended up doing.
Do you take ownership of your work and career growth?
Some established corporations are looking for people who don't need that much direction from management.
Canada Goose, for example, is a 63-year-old retail company, but CEO Dani Reiss prizes an entrepreneurial spirit and flexibility in employees. In a previous interview with Business Insider, Reiss advised hiring managers to ask candidates how they handled a major change in a previous job.
"We try and look for people who are over-committed and who are excited by a wild ride and journey," Reiss said. "At a place like Canada Goose, you have to make your own career path."
Snack giant Mondelez International looks for candidates who take ownership of their work.
Mondelez isn't exactly a fledgling tech startup; some of its brands have been around since the 19th century. But CEO Dirk Van de Put previously told Business Insider that autonomy motivates employees to perform better.
"We're trying to create an environment where people feel like: 'I can make my own decisions, and I can work the way I want to work. I can go as fast as I want to," Van de Put said.
The bottom line: Employees who resist new technologies may be left behind.
Adaptability is as much about keeping a job as it is about finding one.
Lang said many startups have high turnover rates because "the people needed to start a company are very different from the people you need when you get to the next stage."
But, Lang added, "A few members of our team have proven to be highly adaptable and have grown with the company. Their roles have changed over the years, but their attitude towards change has remained the same, so they have proven invaluable."
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