Hiring top 1 percent can pay big

When you mandate "thinking" as a job requirement, you're probably looking for the top employees, those with the best GPAs and SAT scores.

Imagine recruiting for Juno, the on-line service. There are hundreds of positions to fill in dozens of departments, including human resources, strategic growth, telecom, and ad production.

"We have the hiring philosophy that if an applicant is very bright and has a record of academic achievement, they are probably bright enough to learn," says a Juno official.

The company taps into a variety of staffing services to find its employees, but one stands out: Recruiting Intelligence of New York specializes in placing the top one percent of graduates from Ivy League Schools.

"Employers need to look at people literally as human resources," says Jane Caryl, founder of Recruiting Intelligence. "All too often we look to match up skill sets. Some of that is necessary, but beyond that, human resources are worth so much more. These people are capable of much more than fulfilling a job description."

Take one of Juno's recent hires. She was a ballet dancer who had returned to college and had graduated. "She was in her mid-to-late 20s," says the Juno official. "She was a wonderful candidate because she was very mature and very intelligent. Yet she also was an entry-level employee because she had little work experience. That made her very flexible."

Caryl believes that companies should require the best, not settling for less.

"Say you have ten people working for you. Seven out the ten are B and C students. Why shouldn't you have all A's? You need to trade up. One bright entry-level college grad can do the job of three entry-level B's and C's."