Want to Find the Best Talent? Try Searching for the Best Neapolitan Pizza
part 1
I walked down a narrow alley in a dusty village 45 minutes outside of Naples. The time was 18:45, 15 minutes before the official opening. The alley was packed with people. They were queuing up to try the best Neapolitan pizza in the world (or so they say).
You could feel the amazing vibes in the air. I remember thinking to myself, “This is it! I’ve arrived in paradise — pizza paradise that is.” It was time to dance, sing, eat pizza, and be merry. It seemed certain I would never leave.
But by the end of the meal, the initial euphoria had faded. My appetite was perfectly satisfied, but I didn’t feel like dancing anymore. I realised I never actually made it to pizza paradise (which seemed a far, far way away now).
Afterward, I walked out into the alley, stretched out my arms, and looked up at the sky. I suddenly smiled. Because my search for the best Neapolitan pizza would have to continue.
This adventure of mine began in 2016, when a friend and I decided to start a tradition: each year, we would go to Naples to explore the different pizzerias — all in an attempt to locate the greatest Neapolitan pizza on the planet. It’s been like a delicious search for a hidden treasure in many ways (with plenty of gold being unearthed).
What I’ve discovered during these journeys is a world that’s wonderfully complex and delicate — and full of tradition. These trips have been augmented by a journey to Tokyo, which opened to me a wholly unique way of pizza-making.
While my travels have been much about enjoying great pizza, I’ve come to realize there is a connection between searching for the best Neapolitan pizza and searching for the best talent in the world (that’s what I do at VEON).
You may now be wondering what I’m getting at. Well, let me explain all the lessons I’ve learned about finding talent while on the road eating pizza.
1. Instincts working with data deliver powerful insights
In the era of fake news, you can’t always trust the data and information you see online. What I find hysterical is that the Shed at Dulwich, a spoof restaurant, tricked TripAdvisor into thinking it was real. The “eatery” became the number one restaurant in London through clever fake reviews.
When I started researching restaurants in Naples, I used TripAdvisor, Google Maps, and images to get a picture of what I’d like. My instincts guided me. I would look at the dough, the redness of the sauce, the structure of the pizza, and the atmosphere and location of the pizzeria. I literally spent hours doing this.
Led by my instincts, my “deep learning” of photos, videos, and reviews of pizzerias in Naples enabled me to develop some ideas about what’s good and what’s not (even though I had no AI algorithm for this yet, but I am training a few models now…more on this soon). I became very certain I wouldn’t end up at a fake pizzeria!
However, while I knew my instincts based on online research were strong, they weren’t enough to get me to a fully accurate assessment of various pizzerias. After all, an instinct is “a way of behaving, thinking, or feeling that is not learned.” I would need more objective info to better critique pizzerias in Naples.
So, I began thinking about how to put my instincts to work? Wayne Borchardt, a business strategist, offers good advice on this topic. He attests you must connect instincts (your inherent inclinations) with accurate data. That’s how you arrive at a meaningful insight, or “the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something.”
Pondering the nature of instincts and insights, I realised that, by combining my instincts with data from my research and my actual personal experiences eating pizza in Naples, I could form more correct conclusions about how good certain pizzerias are.
All of this now has got me thinking about how this search for the best pizzeria connects to searching for talent. By looking at photos and reading reviews on TripAdvisor, mixed with the real experiences I’ve had in Naples, I’ve been able to translate instincts into insights.
The same can be done when searching for talent. Your instincts about a particular candidate must be bolstered by actual data. That can come from LinkedIn research, contacting references, personal interviews, and other areas.
LinkedIn Talent Intelligence is actually a great example of how instincts and insights come together. With a rich professional network of 560 million members, 20 million companies, and 14 million jobs, LinkedIn enables recruiters to access real-time data and insights on questions like:
- What are the best cities to hire engineers?
- Are we losing critical skills to other companies?
- How are my attrition rates for key talent compared to peers?
With tools like LinkedIn Talent Intelligence, instincts of hiring managers on where to find the best talent can now be confirmed or disputed with one click thanks to AI-based insights and real-time data. This is the beginning of a new era in talent intelligence.
So, let’s sum up the first lesson searching for the best Neapolitan pizza taught me about finding talent:
- Instincts, when combined with data from objective research and personal experiences, lead to powerful insights. Sounds trivial…. Not so much when it comes to talent search and pizza search.
2. Challenge that first impression
I remember two different dining experiences in Naples. These two meals taught me a powerful lesson.
The first pizzeria experience
This is the pizzeria I talk about in the beginning of this piece. It’s called Pepe in Grani and is located in the town of Caiazzo (which is actually just outside Naples). Many blogs and food review sites rate Pepe in Grani as the greatest pizzeria in the world.
When you get to Pepe in Grani, the first impression is simply, “Wow!” The alleyway is quaint and the pizzeria is located in a renovated old bar. When you enter and sit down, you see a huge screen just above your table, where you can watch the pizzaiolos make your pizza. It’s a cool experience.
Once you start eating, your initial sense is that this is special. This feeling continues for ten minutes or so and then sort of starts to die down.
After 30 minutes or so, you’re like, “Is really the best pizza in the world?” As I said earlier, you leave not feeling as if that’s true.
The second pizzeria experience
The second pizza experience was at La Notizia, an establishment just north of city center. When you get there, you notice there’s a queue of local people. The interior is very simple. The kitchen is small and there are only about 40 tables. There are no video screens. It doesn’t ‘wow’. Or actually the simplicity creates the ‘wow’.
But when you look in the kitchen, you see about five or six pizzaiolos joking around together. There are incredibly good vibes coming from the kitchen.
You order a Margherita pizza to test the basic ones before you move on to other ones. Once you taste the pizza, it’s like a transformative experience. First of all, you’re struck by the sauce and the freshness of the tomatoes. The dough has a perfect texture. The dining experience puts you completely in the moment.
What’s really interesting is that the taste of the pizza, the smoke in the kitchen, and the delicacy of the entire process keeps the taste in your mouth for more than just the duration of the meal. Every time you think about that pizza afterward, you start drooling.
To put it simply, your senses vividly remember the experience. And it’s kind of magical.
So, what’s the lesson for talent acquisition from these two experiences?
Let’s compare the two experiences:
- The first experience: It had great hype, but wasn’t really authentic and didn’t deliver a lasting impression.
- The second experience: It lacked the flashiness, but delivered an otherworldly eating experience that you remember for a long time.
We can connect this to talent acquisition. Because my two experiences highlight the flaws of relying on first impressions.
After all, how many times have you had a candidate that blew you away in the first five minutes? First impressions count, but when you go with your gut, you’re making an important decision based on biased instinct.
As psychologists note, first impressions can become self-fulfilling prophecies. You see everything a person says or does later through those positive or negative lenses. This means that first impressions can cause us to incorrectly approve or disapprove of candidates.
The solution is to challenge that first impression. If we think a potential hire is amazing at first, look for faults and weaknesses. If we think someone isn’t so great, give them the benefit of the doubt and see what they’re actually capable of.
Wait 30 Minutes. Force yourself to delay any possible yes or no decision until you review the person’s work-history in-depth.
To return to my first point, we can’t just rely on instincts alone. We need data as well to get the right insights.
So, to put my second lesson from what searching for the best Neapolitan pizza taught me about finding talent in concise terms:
- Don’t let your first impression control your search for talent. Challenge that first impression. The talent search requires an objective, thorough vetting process.
3. Look for problem solvers
I think it’s worth noting that I go to Naples with a friend. We have a sort of panel of judges to critique the Neapolitan pizza. This eliminates the potential for the biases or preferences of one person having too heavy an influence over the overall analysis.
For example, if my friend and I are discussing a particular pizza, we can exchange thoughts about the sauce, structure, ingenuity, and what the pizzaiolo does right and wrong. We are even discussing a tasting form especially dedicated to this. Opinions undoubtedly differ, so we must arrive at some level of agreement. This is a great way to reach a fair conclusion about a pizzeria.
Similarly, during an interview process, having a panel of team members to interact with the candidate and perform various assessments allows a company to generate solid insights about whether a candidate is a good fit.
Specifically, a good fit means someone that can not just get along with the team, but also solve problems for the company.
Just as you can assess if a pizza outdoes the competition, there are many ways to see if a candidate is a better problem solver than others. For example:
- I sometimes do what Lou Adler, a performance-based hiring expert, does. I simply ask, “One of the biggest challenges in our job is (and I provide a specific example). How would you solve this challenge?” The answer you hear will show you a lot about a candidate.
- I ask the candidate to complete a task centered around a relevant problem. I give them a set amount of time to complete the challenge. Then, we have a panel measure different aspects of the solution the candidate provides.
- My team and I look at the depth of the answers and solutions given. You want to see if the candidate’s answer is complex, advanced, or superficial. The best candidates understand cause and effect of a problem.
This idea of problem-solving actually brings me back to my Tokyo trip, which is really an interesting place for pizza. Neapolitan pizza in Tokyo really all began with Susumu Kakinuma, the pioneer of Japanese pizza.
In 1984, Mr. Kakinuma arrived in Naples to learn how to make Neapolitan pizza from the local masters. Unfortunately, no one would hire him. So, he embarked on a yearlong eating tour of pizzerias in Naples, soaking up all he could about how to make authentic Neapolitan pizza. After that, he returned to Tokyo to set up his own Neapolitan pizzeria.
However, one of the first problems Mr. Kakinuma encountered was actually having fresh ingredients. For the most part, he imported ingredients from Naples at first. But this caused major issues with the freshness of the pizza.
Mr. Kakinuma came up with a solution: source local ingredients and grow his own with nearby Japanese farmers. For oven wood, he started using wood from Japanese cherry blossom trees. He infused the pizzas with local basil and garlic. To flavor the dough, he added in Wasabi salt. And he even began growing tomatoes outside Tokyo.
What Mr. Kakinuma did was find the root cause of his problem and come up with a solution. The depth of his solution shows an incredible focus on craftsmanship that’s truly admirable. No wonder his current pizzeria, Seirinkan, which literally means “house (館) of sacred (聖) wood (林)”, is widely regarded as one of the best Neapolitan restaurants out there.
Now, let’s summarize the third lesson:
- Companies, especially in the digital age, require problem solvers — those that can find the source of the problem and build a relevant solution. Being a problem-solver requires focus and discipline, much like Mr. Kakinuma has. To find the best problem solvers, we must not only rely on instincts and data to come up with insights, we need to challenge our first impressions and biases. This means we need an objective hiring process that involves a team.
Searching for the best pizza: A lesson on striving for excellence
I’ve discussed much about trying to find the best Neapolitan pizza — and the taste of those pizza pies. During my journeys, seeing the people behind the pizza, the pizzaiolos, like Susumu Kakinuma, has enlightened me about what striving for excellence means.
So, in part two of this series, we’ll cover what exactly witnessing pizzaiolos at work has taught me about recruiting talent. Read on!
