CQ is the new IQ.
Consider the last job posting you read or wrote. Chances are it included at least one of these phrases:
“Learn on the job”
“Self-starter”
“Comfortable with ambiguity”
“Highly-motivated”
“Hit the ground running”
Check all 5? Congrats, you just won Hiring Jargon Bingo.
But here’s the kicker: All of these candidate attributes can be boiled down to the same core trait — curiosity.
A curious trend
Where a decade ago admitting to “Googling your job” might’ve been career suicide, today it’s practically a virtue at any fast-growing startup. The internet is an ever-refreshing source of cheap, high-quality information; that means the pace of innovation has never been faster — and the shelf-life of industry expertise has never been shorter.
Someone who graduated 50 years ago stood a good chance of making it through their entire professional career with maybe one or two “major” changes in what they learned in college. These days, we’ll be lucky to make it a few years before a Gen Z Jeff Bezos disrupts the [INSERT INDUSTRY HERE] with a new platform promising bigger, better, faster [INSERT RESULTS] than our college professors could’ve ever dreamed.
It follows that, in this hyperconnected world, the question for candidates is not simply, “Are you an expert in your field?” But, “How motivated are you to keep up?”
And it was in this context that — like some kind of business school Indiana Jones — psychologists stumbled upon a long-forgotten ‘quotient’: CQ.
Raiders of the Lost Quotient
Alongside “intellectual quotient” (IQ) used to measure cognitive ability and “emotional quotient” (EQ) used to measure self-awareness, “curiosity quotient” (CQ) measures our natural desire to learn and explore.
Simply put, people with a high CQ have a “hungry mind.”
They are open to new experiences and invested in acquiring knowledge over time — a particularly useful characteristic given how fast new tech platforms are making the average marketing degree obsolete.
That said, people with high CQ aren’t necessarily valedictorians — they’re notoriously averse to routine and authority — but they are committed to lifelong learning. These are not the kind of people who are going to come into the office and coast or need a lot of handholding: high CQ individuals are naturally inquisitive and comfortable with ambiguity.
In short, they’re perfect for high-growth roles at quickly-evolving companies that may or may not have well-defined roles yet (*cough* *cough* every startup ever).
How curious are you?
Ask yourself these questions:
- Are you concerned with how things work or just that they work?
- Do you prefer riddles or word searches?
- Do you like to meet new people or stick to the same group of friends?
- Do you have a go-to restaurant order or do you reach for something new?
The former answer to each question indicates a curious mind (you can take the full HBR survey here), but even if you’re staunch “caesar salad, no croutons” kind of person, you can still cultivate your natural curiosity: Next time you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t “fake it ’til you make it.” Admit that you’re unsure — then commit to figuring it out.
Getting out of your comfort zone is a lot like playing the tuba: the more you do it, the easier it gets.
The Point: Don’t know how to do something? Google it.
