Re-thinking these processes becomes necessary in order to make them more flexible and business focused.

Brian Acton took a decision on 2007. He decided to leave his job in Yahoo!, the company where he met Jan Koum.

From that moment on, Acton looked for new challenges within technological companies. On 2009 he participated in a selection process in Facebook; however, he was not selected. Acton wrote at that time in his Twitter account: “Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with fantastic people. Looking for the next adventure in life”.

What happened five years later is a well-known story.  Acton and Koum created WhatsApp, 450 million users considered it an excellent tool for communicating and Facebook decided purchasing the app on 16.000 million dollars was a strategic move.

Turned down candidate who became an entrepeneur had all takes to be a successful intrapeneur. However, at that time, the company did not know or could not see such qualities. The costs of that deficit, in this case may be surprising for the amount of the transaction.

How many times do we go through selection processes? Are they aligned with the five year projections of the business? Does it have innovative and up-dated tools to detect potential talents?

Undoubtedly, turned down only five years ago candidate Acton, shoots several thoughts to re-think how the company is set for the search of talents.