Asking Job Candidates the $50m Question by Alexander Saint-Amand

Writing again for the Huffington Post, GLG CEO Alexander Saint-Amand discusses the importance of garnering an understanding of potential employee’s values both in and out of the workplace.

Last week, Reid Hoffman, the chairman and co-founder of LinkedIn, told attendees at The WorldPost’s Future of Work Conference that he asks every candidate pursuing a position at his company what job they want after LinkedIn. It’s a great question, one that most companies don’t ask. As Reid points out, at a minimum it establishes trust, because odds are that employees won’t stay at any job for their entire career.

There’s another question I like to ask candidates:

What would you do with your career if you had $50m in the bank?

What I’m really asking is what they would do with their time if money wasn’t an issue. Would they coach high school basketball? If so, they likely value teaching and mentoring. Would they sail around the world solo for two years? If so, that says something different.

Almost everyone stumbles for a minute. There’s no right answer. Some start fishing for what they think we might want to hear. Eventually we start having a real conversation.

Read the full piece on the Huffington Post, here.