Since then, Alibaba has increased into an e-commerce giant with more than 80,000 wage-earners worldwide and is one of the most attractive employers in China, according to a ranking by consultancy establish Universum.
Underpinning that success is one of Ma’s first rules in hiring: Keep away from the “best” people and the “experts.”
“I hate to hire people who come as adepts because there’s no experts of future, they’re always experts of yesterday,” Ma said. “There are no unexcelled people. The best people are always in your company, you train them to enhance best.”
And that starts with getting in people who are ready to learn and are not rueful to make mistakes, he added.
Topping the class is not a requirement to get hired by Jack Ma. In actuality, Ma is known for shunning top performers.
In the book “Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma shaped,” writer Duncan Clark said Ma preferred hiring people who are not top thespians of their schools, according to an excerpt carried by Tech in Asia. Ma interpreted that the “college elites” would get frustrated easily when they en face difficulties in the real world, according to Clark.
Even so, candidates necessity still have some smarts to navigate the ever-changing business atmosphere, Ma revealed last week.
Ma said he tends to prefer people with a benefit emotional quotient because he finds that they make heartier leaders and team players. But without some intelligence, they wouldn’t go far either, he amplified.
“You should have the EQ (to) work with others, you should have IQ so you identify what you’re doing,” he said.
Ma places a lot of emphasis on being optimistic, a feature that he said helped him build Alibaba into the tech juggernaut that it is today.
Being confident can help people turn a challenging situation into a favorable one, he communicated.
“As entrepreneurs, if you’re not optimistic, you’re in trouble,” Ma said. “So the people I choose, they accept to be optimistic.”
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