Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman explains how he rates potential employees
Stephen Schwarzman, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone, the world's largest alternative investment manager, rates job applicants on a 1-10 scale.
"I'm always trying to hire people who are 10s," Schwarzman told FOX Business.
Schwarzman said the top candidates can do remarkable things, like anticipate problems and quickly find solutions without needing extensive guidance.
"They can identify patterns of things that are changing, and they can come up with new paradigms," Schwarzman said.
"They also tend to be leaders. They themselves like to be surrounded by people similar to themselves."
He said 10s aren't know-it-alls and, often, are great at receiving feedback.
Schwarzman compared hiring tomorrow's business leaders to a team drafting star athletes.
"What I find is, you know, Tom Brady, for example, would be a 10," Schwarzman said. "Whoever's playing for the New York Jets wouldn't be."
So is there hope to climb the ranks and turn yourself into a 10? Schwarzman said it's not likely.
"Actually that's really pretty hard," Schwarzman said. "That's like asking a really good basketball player to be Steph Curry"
"How do you shoot the ball from 35 feet, three times better than anyone in history? The answer is, you don't."
But he says that doesn't mean that 9s aren't valuable.
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"They can see a lot of the things that 10s do," Schwarzman said. "They're brilliant executors. They can build teams. They can manage people. All they're missing is that extra-special dimension that makes a gold medalist in the Olympics."
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Schwarzman recently wrote a book called "What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence" which covers this subject matter as well as many others.