Jennifer Dulski has done a lot of hiring in her day.

The CEO and founder of Rising Team, which sells team development programs, has worked as a global head of product management at Google and head of groups and community at Facebook. "I've hired many, many people in my career," she says, "probably thousands of people."

Among the characteristics she seeks in a candidate are ambition and creativity. But there are two qualities in particular she looks for in everyone: "Adaptability and the ability to bounce back from obstacles is probably the No. 1 thing I look for," she says.

Here's why and how she susses it out.

'Every other day is a re-org and a global pandemic'

Being adaptable in the workplace is critical.

"Especially these days, every other day is a re-org and a global pandemic," says Dulski, adding that there's also "the arrival of gen AI" to consider. Companies are constantly having to rethink how they function in the face of new challenges and with new technology to adopt.

As such, workers have to be "able to get back up again when you get knocked down," she says. They have to be able to stay on their toes and be ready to shift work habits and priorities if necessary.

Adaptability is a quality Mark Cuban highlights as critical for long-term success as well. "You've got to be able to adapt," he recently told Make It, "because everything is always changing."

'I can see those patterns in people's early life'

To figure out if candidates have these qualities, Dulski asks about their life before they started working.

"I can see those patterns in people's early life," she says, "people, for instance, who did not have a straight path to college and managed to go to college anyway, that is navigation of obstacles which will be really useful inside most companies where I have worked." The same is true for people who decided they wanted to be an expert in a given hobby as a kid, for example, and figured out how to get there.

That kind of ability to push forward in the face of obstacles, "that's the green flag for me," she says.

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