Facebook COO gives best career advice in two sentences

Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook and founder of Lean In Foundation, gave the best career advice to jobseekers during an Airbnb event.

Creating jobs: ‘No society can be built without youth participation’

Sandberg was recently invited to the Airbnb event to share her years at Facebook and Google where she was asked, “What's the number one thing you look for in someone who can scale with a company?"

“Someone who takes feedback well. Because people who can take feedback well are people who can learn and grow quickly," she answered. Sandberg's response highlighted an important skill that most jobseekers tend to overlook as they focus more on technical skills.



For tech giants like Facebook, innovation is an essential part of the business. For this reason, its’ employees are expected to constantly look for ways to develop new skills, as well as have the capability  to seek new opportunities. According to Justin Bariso, founder of Insight, “Emotions often prevent us from taking advantage of negative feedback, which is why Sandberg stresses on the importance of turning negative feedback into motivation to achieve your goals.”



He added, “To be clear, I'm not excusing criticism that's hurtful or poorly delivered. And the truth is, if you're in the habit of delivering sincere and specific commendation first, it's much easier for your people to take your criticism the way its intended--to help.”

And “In the rare case the negative feedback is completely unfounded, it can still give you a chance to see how a sample of your audience will feel about things.”

This article originally appeared on Inc.