They looked at the data. In Work Rules!, Laszlo Bock (head of People Operations at Google) writes: « So in 2007 we started looking for themes across the ten th

They looked at the data. In Work Rules!, Laszlo Bock (head of People Operations at Google) writes: « So in 2007 we started looking for themes across the ten thousand or so people we had hired, as well as the millions we didn’t. In addition to testing technical hires on their engineering ability, we realized that there were four distinct attributes that predicted whether someone would be successful at Google: 1. General Cognitive Ability. Not surprisingly, we want smart people who can learn and adapt to new situations. Remember that this is about understanding how candidates have solved hard problems in real life and how they learn, not checking GPAs and SATs. » The three others are Leadership, "Googleyness" and Role-Related Knowledge.