Stephanie Kramer has spent the majority of her 20-year beauty career at L’Oréal, first in marketing and now as chief human resources officer for the company’s North American operations.
She knows how to find good hires, given the work she does to build and develop teams.
Kramer says he’s looking for candidates who understand the brand’s values: passion, innovation, entrepreneurship, open-mindedness, the pursuit of excellence, and a sense of responsibility. She said she doesn’t want people to just rattle off these phrases, but rather hear how they personally connect with them.
“I look for natural affinities,” she tells CNBC Make It. “I’m not looking for people to try to conform to my values, because that’s what they think I want to hear. I want them to feel that.”
Stephanie Kramer is Chief Human Resources Officer for L’Oréal North America.
Stephanie Kramer
For example, when it comes to innovation, she wants to know: “Where are they getting their ideas? How are they sharing them with others? When someone has a good idea, how do they snowball together? How do they work together to improve it?”
Kramer says candidates don’t just have to talk about demonstrating these values in their past work experience. “I want to hear about it in other parts of their lives,” she says.
“I love it when someone says, ‘I had this idea, I got some friends together and made it happen, and here’s the result, and I’m back and it’s even bigger,'” Kramer says. The pride they convey when they say that is truly amazing.
How to talk about past failures
Kramer says she often asks candidates to tell about a time they failed and what they learned from that experience.
The executive said he’s most interested in hearing how people discuss their roles during setbacks.
“There’s a very strong sense of responsibility for your role in the failure, but also self-awareness about how you could have helped other parts succeed,” she says.
She also likes hearing people talk about what they needed in difficult moments because it shows how people work under pressure in teams. For example, a lesson from a failure may be as simple as acknowledging the fact that you should have asked for more help.
“That combination of self-awareness, responsibility, and an tolerance for failure — learning more than knowing — that’s what I really want to hear,” she says.
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