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Breaking into the notoriously competitive world of luxury and fashion has always been somewhat of a mystery. But if you don\u2019t have a big ego or short-term motives, you\u2019re already one step ahead\u2014that\u2019s at least according to Chanel\u2019s chief people officer.<\/p>\n
The 115-year-old luxury fashion house may be synonymous with heritage and exclusivity. But in her first-ever sit-down interview, Chanel\u2019s CPO and COO Claire Isnard says the brand is far less interested in where candidates come from than who they are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we look for talent, the first thing that we look for is personalities. You know, values,\u201d Isnard exclusively tells Fortune<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe first thing that we look for is personality and the fit for the culture. Are they going to be a good fit with our high standards of excellence, integrity, collaboration, and long-term?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf people have big egos and want to work solo or are mercenaries doing things only for the short-term, they\u2019re not going to fit,\u201d Isnard says.\u00a0<\/p>\n The second thing she\u2019s looking out for is a learning mindset. Skills, she says, come last. \u201cBut the other two are absolutely necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n And unlike many of its competitors, Isnard stresses that Chanel doesn\u2019t handpick talent from \u201cone or two\u201d elite schools. Instead, the company intentionally recruits from a broad range of backgrounds to ensure a diverse mix of perspectives and personalities at HQ.<\/p>\n Isnard doesn\u2019t rely on <\/strong>sneaky coffee cup tests or trick questions to assess character. Instead, she listens closely to how candidates tell their own story.<\/p>\n \u201cI always ask, what is your story? What has shaped you, what has helped you to become the person that you are today?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n From there, she\u2019s looking for authenticity\u2014especially around how you\u2019ve dealt with any setbacks.<\/p>\n \u201cYou hear so much. You can already see if the person has learned from the failure, if people are vulnerable enough to tell you that they had a difficult moment or not.\u201d<\/p>\n And if they give surface-level responses, she\u2019s not afraid to probe deeper: \u201cYou can ask them also to describe who they are, what people think of them, and how the feedback they have received has been.\u201d<\/p>\n Isnard says the way candidates tell their story reveals a lot about them: whether they can admit their faults, handle life\u2019s inevitable ups and downs, and bounce back after.<\/p>\n Everybody wants to work at Chanel\u2014Isnard\u2019s words. So another big telltale sign that they\u2019re a good egg (and not just wanting to add the glossy brand name to their LinkedIn profile) is whether they ask any questions. She says that\u2019s a sure-tale sign that the candidate is actually interested in the job at hand, beyond the brand.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is almost an emotional attachment to this brand. That\u2019s why you need to go deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n Job-seekers already have to jump through flaming hoops to land a gig, navigating dinner tests and a mountain of \u2018ghost\u2019 postings. Now they\u2019re increasingly being handed personality tests.\u00a0<\/p>\n As performance personality testing company Hogan Assessments told Fortune<\/em>, personality tests aren\u2019t new, but they\u2019re currently trending as bosses double down on quality over quantity when it comes to talent. And it could actually be a good thing for young workers.<\/p>\n The CEO of Sweet Loren\u2019s gives every new hire a personality test\u2014and they don\u2019t get the job if they\u2019re too corporate, giving a perhaps unintended boost to Gen Z, who happen to be more entrepreneurial than previous generations. Meanwhile, Eventbrite\u2019s CEO, Julia Hartz, told Fortune<\/em> she is analyzing workers\u2019 personalities to help reduce bias.<\/p>\n The shift comes as millions of Gen Zers find themselves unemployed. With more than 1.2 million applications submitted for fewer than 17,000 open graduate roles in the U.K. alone last year, personality tests could level the playing field in assessing workers, rather than it being about who went to the most prestigious school or has the snazziest experience under their belt.\u00a0<\/p>\n And some firms really are just hiring for vibes: \u201cWe\u2019re looking for people who have fun working,\u201d Luis von Ahn, CEO of Duolingo, said of the company\u2019s hiring plans.<\/p>\n That\u2019ll be music to Gen Z\u2019s ears, many of whom are set on being the company\u2019s \u201cchief vibes officer\u201d and bringing the joy back into the office amid gloomy RTO mandates, constant layoffs, and increased workloads.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Meet #Chanel #chief #hires #personality #talent #skills<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Breaking into the notoriously … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[2005,1979,542,5316,1088,3736,3862,2007,5317,271,2010,302,5318,454,2297,538,2009,2011],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How Chanel tests for personality<\/h2>\n
The CEOs of Duolingo and Eventbrite are fans of personality tests too<\/h2>\n