Whenever I see a large number of advertisements for talents in academic institutions (universities and research institutions) on science online, I ask myself two questions: what is talent? How can we choose the right talents? Obviously, both issues involve "academic evaluation". What is talent? I can't make this clear. Because, according to the "dazzling" talent plans formulated by the Chinese government and industry departments and the requirements of many academic units to recruit talents, it seems that only those who are selected into those plans and wear these hats belong to "talents". However, since ancient times, there has been an ancient saying that "I am born to be useful". The "I am talented" here is obviously different from the standard expressed by these hat talents. From the meaning of "ancient motto", all of us are talents, but our abilities are different. In fact, the same is true. There is no "all-round talent" in the world. We are all "professionals" with expertise in our respective fields. Therefore, this article does not intend to discuss the topic of "what is talent", which is "unclear and unclear", but wants to talk about "selecting talents" and its related "academic evaluation" based on a student's overseas academic experience.

In my impression, the current practices of talent selection with Chinese characteristics and the selection of teaching posts in European and American universities seem to be "simple". However, there are substantial differences between the "simplicity" of the two. The "simple" practice of talent selection in China means that some units recruit talents by means of "mechanical full quantitative indicators". The specific approach is to ask candidates to list the list of published papers, SCI search data and if value of published journals. In particular, it is inconceivable that the if data of journals recognized by the Chinese Academy of sciences are used to divide academic journals artificially, or the "zoning standard" formulated by some experts of their own units divides academic journals into "369 grades". This is obviously to "induce" the papers of researchers in these units to be published in these journals, otherwise the results will be discounted. As a scholar active in the front line of scientific research, don't you know the importance of academic journals in your field? Is it necessary to "guide" through administrative means? There are some "wonderful" phenomena: for example, some people indicate "SCI and if data" in the list of papers on their home page, as well as the absurd expression of "total if data of published papers". To this end, there are some "outstanding" talents in China's academic circles, such as "one paper hits the world" (i.e. "high score" papers), "undergraduate researchers" and post-90s professors and doctoral directors due to the large number of published papers. This talent selection does not seem to need the "peer review" commonly used in international academic circles, but only the number of personnel in the personnel department. In this context, expert review mainly belongs to "going through the motions" and "form". Only God knows whether the talents selected in this way have the ability of sustainable development. In most of our units, "it's easy to treat and difficult to see off". Once they wear relevant hats, they will be used for life. This has a certain negative effect on social fairness and justice, and brings undue pressure to our young scholars.

There is no doubt that an academic's paper publishing record is an important manifestation of his or her academic influence and status in their peers. However, our current "counting evaluation" is by no means a scientific and reasonable talent evaluation mechanism. Because this kind of evaluation can only be completed by non professionals in the personnel department. However, to judge the value of an academic paper, people in the industry with high professional level and rigorous style of study can complete it. When talking about the evaluation of "tenured professors", the former director of the Department of chemistry of Stanford University expressed their "simple" approach in simple words: "the basic standard for us to evaluate a tenured professor is not how many projects and funds he has taken for the Department, but his academic influence in international peers". According to this concept, the evaluation of academic talents can also be "simplified", that is, the representative achievements of candidates are sent to international peers for "discretion" and evaluation. In 10 or more international peers with a certain "bottom line of learning style", when they compare the representative achievements of several candidates in the same direction, the evaluation results of these international peers will be more reliable than China's current "counting evaluation". It is reported that some famous universities in China are using this universal value of "peer review" to select talents.

The student applied for a research position in a world-famous university. The practice of recruiting professors is roughly divided into three steps: first, research, analyze and compare the resumes and relevant materials provided by several applicants. These materials mainly belong to objective information, such as educational experience, research direction, work experience and paper records. Students are determined as candidates for video interview; Second, the first video communication with him; During this period, the recruited professors learned about the situation by telephone with the recommenders provided by the students (including NTU in Singapore, MIT in the United States and TCD of Trinity College in Dublin, who are all postdoctoral tutors or main partners of the students), determined to conduct the third nearly one hour video interview, and finally decided to be officially employed. It can be seen from the above that through these processes, the recruiting professors basically understand the students' scientific research attitude and diligence (presumably introduced by the recommender); Study style and academic integrity; Ability to control the current situation of the current research field; Academic status among peers (students are elected to IEEE senior member); Communication ability and oral English level (the recruitment Professor frankly said that the student's oral English communication ability is excellent among Chinese professors). For example, Professor MIT was impressed by his hard work; Professor of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore appreciates his academic ability; The professor of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, appreciates the students' academic seriousness and rigorous attitude. Obviously, because detailed paper publishing records have been provided in the student resume, people will not query SCI citation data or journal if value. Because the recruitment professor is the leading expert in this field (editor in chief of a professional authoritative journal). In this recruitment process, we can't see the "simple practice" of "counting". In fact, when the professor of Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland admitted the student to the post doctoral position (nearly 50 applicants for a position), he had a similar experience. In a telephone inquiry with the professor, the student inadvertently mentioned: "I don't care about the number of papers published, but pay attention to quality, and publish the results in professional mainstream journals. Therefore, I don't publish many papers". The professor was pleased to say that this is very in line with my style. Many applicants have published more papers than you. Finally, the professor gave the postdoctoral position to the student. Of course, the student's one-and-a-half-year postdoctoral experience and performance are deeply appreciated by the professor of Trinity College. The two sides have always maintained a good academic partnership.

However, it is not easy for us to select "potential stock" talents. In fact, it is not advisable to simply compare the number of papers among peers. Those "talents" who "beat the world with one paper" are not necessarily reliable, because publishing papers sometimes has contingency, especially for those "precocious talents". As we all know, scientific research accumulation is the basis for producing high-level achievements, which needs to be tested by time. Except for a few "talents", it is impossible for most scientific and technological workers. When our media reports on some "youth groups" talents, they often only focus on publicizing the outstanding achievements, but avoid talking about the cases of failure caused by "pulling seedlings to encourage" and mislead the public to a certain extent. I appreciate the simple method of talent selection of weizman Academy of Sciences in Israel, and select people with "curiosity, enthusiasm and patience" to engage in scientific research they are interested in. Because "curiosity" can maximize the contribution of your knowledge. However, how to judge whether a person has "curiosity, enthusiasm and patience". Although the "standard" is relatively abstract, we can still judge these "potential stock" talents through some phenomena. For example, good academic experience (doctoral and postdoctoral experience), diligence and hard work, being able to sit on the bench, humility, and the spirit of doing more with less. Some people with these excellent qualities may "succeed late", but they will eventually become excellent talents in all walks of life and contribute to national economic construction and social development.