When hiring, top firms like McKinsey value a candidate's ability to articulate a deliberate, logical problem-solving process as much as their past successes. Having a structured method shows you can reliably tackle novel challenges, whereas simply pointing to past wins might suggest luck or context-specific success.
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The ability to distill a complex subject down to its essential principles (like "algebra in five pages") is a rare and powerful skill. It enables faster learning, better communication, and clearer product vision, often outperforming the ability to perform intricate calculations.
To accelerate your career, focus on developing 'agency'. This means moving beyond assigned tasks to proactively solve unspoken, systemic problems. Instead of chasing high-visibility projects, look for the unaddressed issues that keep leaders up at night. Solving these demonstrates true ownership and strategic value.
Senior leaders now value candidates who ask excellent questions and are eager to solve problems over those who act like they know everything. This represents a significant shift from valuing 'knowers' to valuing 'learners' in the workplace.
To simulate interview coaching, feed your written answers to case study questions into an LLM. Prompt it to score you on a specific rubric (structured thinking, user focus, etc.), identify exact weak phrases, explain why, and suggest a better approach for structured, actionable feedback.
When transitioning to a new industry, your lack of domain knowledge is secondary. Focus on your "superpower": the proven, repeatable process you use to deliver results. Articulate your ability to launch, rally teams, and solve problems, as these core skills are universally valuable.
The most valuable professionals are neither pure visionaries nor pure executioners; they are "step builders." This means they can understand a high-level strategic vision and then map out the granular, sequential steps required to achieve it. This skill is critical for turning ambitious goals into reality.
For high-level leadership roles, skip hypothetical case studies. Instead, present candidates with your company's actual, current problems. The worst-case scenario is free, high-quality consulting. The best case is finding someone who can not only devise a solution but also implement it, making the interview process far more valuable.
Ineffective interviews try to catch candidates failing. A better approach models a collaborative rally: see how they handle challenging questions and if they can return the ball effectively. The goal is to simulate real-world problem-solving, not just grill them under pressure.
The most common failure in problem-solving is rushing past defining ("State") and structuring the problem to get to the more gratifying "Solution" phase. A disciplined, multi-stage process forces a shift from instinctive (System 1) to deliberative (System 2) thinking, preventing premature and often flawed solutions.
For cutting-edge AI problems, innate curiosity and learning speed ("velocity") are more important than existing domain knowledge. Echoing Karpathy, a candidate with a track record of diving deep into complex topics, regardless of field, will outperform a skilled but less-driven specialist.
