Rethinking Talent: Insights Beyond Traditional Experience

The consumer insights industry’s reliance on hiring for specific, traditional experience is limiting its future competitiveness.

While most firms still demand years of methodological expertise, the most forward-thinking companies are building teams that include historians, philosophers, and artists, people who are transforming how brands understand human behavior.

The core challenge is not finding people with yesterday’s answers, but attracting those who can ask tomorrow’s questions. As Lars Strannegård, Dean of the Stockholm School of Economics, argues, exposing people to unfamiliar concepts “widens the blinders we all have,” fostering new perspectives in a rapidly changing world.

The Hidden Cost of Experience-First Hiring

Most consultancies treat hiring like buying a specialized tool: they seek talent who can immediately execute advanced methodologies. This seems logical: hire proven performers, reduce risk, and get quick results.

But this approach creates three major blind spots:

Hiring for yesterday’s challenges: Consumer behavior is changing rapidly, making once-reliable methods obsolete. For example, the Net Promoter Score (NPS), once a key growth metric and tied to CEO remuneration, is now under scrutiny. It has shown little impact on consumer scores despite heavy use. Prioritizing experience over adaptability is betting that the future will look like the past, a risky assumption.

Filtering out transformative thinking: The most innovative insights often come from those who approach problems differently. A historian may see consumer patterns as echoes of social movements, applying their skill in deconstructing complex narratives to brand loyalty trends; a theologian may grasp the deeper meaning behind brand loyalty by understanding core human values; an artist may detect emotional resonance missed by data alone by interpreting visual cues and aesthetic preferences.

Strannegård describes exposure to art and culture as an “intellectual and emotional itching powder” that enhances creativity by prompting new combinations of familiar ideas.

Fostering a culture of diminishing returns: When everyone shares similar backgrounds, creative tension disappears, and breakthrough insights become rare. Teams become skilled at optimizing current approaches but may miss entirely new paradigms.

The McKinsey Revelation: Building Talent Ecosystems

Top consulting firms like McKinsey lead the way, having moved beyond experience-first hiring, instead building talent ecosystems that turn potential into performance. They recruit from diverse backgrounds: technology, humanities, law, and medicine, believing that varied perspectives yield better solutions.

In a fast-changing industry, learning agility is more important than current expertise. The consumer insights professional who will thrive in 2030 is not necessarily the one with the best 2025 skill set, but the one who can quickly master new methodologies. The consumer insights industry, like many others, is “stuck in mental models” and not doing enough to encourage “lifelong learning” as truths change rapidly.

This philosophy shifts the talent pipeline: instead of seeking someone who already knows advanced methods, companies should find those with analytical strength, cultural curiosity, and humility. Technical skills can be taught; fresh perspectives are harder to cultivate.

The Four Pillars of Next-Generation Talent Acquisition

1. Redefine Your Talent “Taste”

Great insights professionals share foundational qualities beyond specific skills. We can learn much from the European approach. German educators speak of Bildung - a reflective intelligence combining analytical rigor, cultural literacy, and emotional intelligence. Strannegård describes Bildung as “what’s left after you’ve forgotten what you’ve learned” - an enduring approach to the world.

The Stockholm School of Economics' educational mission is FREE:

Fact and science-based: Essential in an era when AI can fabricate “truths,” creating an “ontological crisis” of trust.

Reflective and self-aware: Able to ask, “Are my attitudes and feelings my own, or internalized from others?”

Empathetic and culturally literate: Exposure to art is vital for understanding others.

Entrepreneurial and responsible: Willing to act and take responsibility.

Seek talent who demonstrate:

Reflective self-awareness: Distinguishing their own thinking from external influences.

Cultural fluency: Engaging with art, literature, or cross-cultural experiences to build empathy.

Abstract reasoning: Deriving meaning from ambiguity, not just processing data.

2. Diversify Your Sourcing Strategy

The industry must move beyond “fishing in familiar ponds.” Recruit from liberal arts, humanities, and creative fields. These individuals bring broader experiences that help understand diverse consumer segments.

• A philosophy major may offer deep insights into consumer motivation.
• A former teacher understands behavior change.
• An artist senses emotional resonance and aesthetics.

3. Implement Systematic Assessment

Replace subjective interviews with structured evaluations that identify high-potential individuals from any background. Use case-based assessments and behavioural interviews to test problem-solving, learning agility, and cultural fit. McKinsey’s “Solve” game-based assessment, for example, measures strategic thinking without requiring business experience.

Assess for:

Cognitive flexibility: Can they quickly learn new frameworks?

Empathetic reasoning: Can they understand different perspectives?

Cultural curiosity: Do they seek out diverse experiences?

Values alignment: Will they thrive in a collaborative, insight-driven culture that celebrates diverse perspectives and continuous learning?

4. Build Comprehensive Development Systems

Hiring is just the start. Develop robust onboarding and continuous learning programs to build technical skills while preserving unique perspectives. McKinsey invests heavily in training, mentorship, and global career paths.

• Integrate cultural immersion: Encourage engagement with the arts, literature, and cross-cultural experiences to boost empathy and creativity.
• Mentorship: Pair experienced practitioners with new hires. Recognize that education is about developing the mind, body, and soul. Humans, unlike machines, have physical and emotional dimensions that are essential for well-rounded talent.

Immediate Implementation Strategy

It would be impossible to overhaul hiring strategies in your business overnight.

Take these steps:

Week 1: Review job descriptions. Remove unnecessary experience requirements. Focus on thinking skills and personal qualities.

Week 2: Expand sourcing. Partner with liberal arts colleges, cultural organisations, and non-business associations. Attend career fairs at humanities-focused universities.

Week 3: Redesign interviews. Use case studies to assess problem-solving, not just technical knowledge. Ask behavioral questions to reveal curiosity and empathy, which include specific examples in the last week, month, three months, etcetera

While implementing these shifts may require initial buy-in and a commitment to new training paradigms, the long-term competitive advantage in a human-centric insights landscape far outweighs the upfront investment.

The Competitive Advantage of Human-Centred Hiring

While competitors continue to hire from the same pool, you’ll build a team that blends analytical rigour with cultural intelligence, technical skill with creativity, and methodological precision with empathy.

This approach doesn’t just address immediate talent shortages; it positions your consultancy for long-term success in an industry demanding human insight alongside technical capability. Strannegård emphasizes that “machines are great at being machines... but they are not human.” He urges institutions to develop “human intelligence” - empathy, sense-making, contextualization, and language skills—qualities that distinguish humans from AI.

The consumer insights professionals who will thrive are those who can navigate the complex emotional, cultural, and psychological factors driving human behaviour, leveraging their uniquely human capacities as AI takes over routine analysis.

The question isn’t whether this approach works, but whether you’ll implement it before your competitors do. The future-proofing of companies demands attracting minds capable of asking tomorrow’s questions.

The talent exists. Methodologies can be taught. Are you ready to see potential where others see only unfamiliarity?