Players of Character

Just found this over at Chase Jarvis' blog, an interesting point of view on the character of the people you hire:

Clark interviewed to be my assistant a couple weeks before he was scheduled to graduate from the University of Southern California. Unlike the other finalist for the job, an attractive woman the rest of the creative department was imploring me to hire, Noah was more "boy band": spiked hair, fresh face, jeans that were more fancy than a guy needs to own. But there was something about him that reminded me of myself. And it wasn't the hair. He was just so damn eager to be in the business. There was no pretense, no attitude or entitlement. All he wanted to do was work hard, learn and help.

So I hired him, spelling out very clearly that the chances of his growing into an art director position with us were similar to the word at the end of our agency name: "Zero." He nodded along and said he understood. Then he set about completing every task asked of him to the highest standard possible. Between doing all the so-called "grunt" work, Noah grabbed every creative brief he found lying around the office and looked for ways to help out with layouts, taglines, new business presentations, etcetera. He never asked to be promoted. He never bitched about his day-to-day responsibilities or acted like anything was beneath him. Which is why when a junior art director position opened, I decided it was time to do what a guy named Peter Seronick did for me years before: Give him a chance. So I gave the kid who was Ground Zero the opportunity to join our creative department over all the guys and girls who simply wanted to work for Ground Zero.

Like it? Go read the entire article here.