What to look out for in potential job candidates during the hiring process
In these days and times amidst the global pandemic, hiring right is essential for building your brand and keeping your business running smoothly. Employees don’t have time to make mistakes when it comes to the hiring process which, at the best of times, can be an expensive and risky task.
What to look for when it comes to hiring the right candidate for your company will be dependent on the position, skills needed, company culture and working environment. However, there are more general attributes to keep in mind too; it’s not just about the hard skills. Business owners and interviewers need to consider applicants based on their soft skills too. According to Finances Online, 89% of hiring executives say bad hires often lack soft skills.
Here are 5 of the most important attributes and soft skills to look out for when considering a candidate.
Attitude
Attitude is everything and finding someone with the right attitude for your company is the difference between a successful hiring process and one that may fail miserably. In his book, Hiring for Attitude, Mark Murphy reveals that 89% of new hire fails are for attitudinal reasons and only 11% for a lack of skill. In his interview with Forbes, he goes on to say the reasons ‘included a lack of coachability, low levels of emotional intelligence, motivation and temperament’.
With this in mind, paying attention to attitude right from the interview process is vital. Look for someone who is positive, social, flexible, hardworking, professional, confident, enthusiastic, coachable, easily motivated, empathetic and generally easy to get along with.
Communication
Finding someone who values good communication is essential. In essence, without communication, there’s no way forward, so finding someone who displays effective communication skills should be one of the first attributes you look for in a candidate. In a 2016 LinkedIn survey, communication ranked first of the most sought-after soft skills among employers.
Effective communication is not only vital in managing expectations in house, but also those of clients and partners, and with Covid-19 forcing most businesses into remote working situations, effective communication is now more important than ever. Look out for these qualities throughout the interview process.
Integrity
Conducting business ethically is a huge part of any industry and its up to both employers and employees to uplift and maintain business ethics in their environment. As unethical behaviour creates legal risks and damage to businesses as well as employees and consumers, looking for potential candidates with a high integrity, who are honest, trusting and upfront in their behaviour, should be one of the first soft skills you address.
In his article on attributes to look for in candidates, business expert, Jeff Bullas, suggests that asking how they responded to an ethical dilemma at a previous workplace may help you better gauge their integrity.
Intelligence
When we talk about intelligence, we’re not particularly referring to high IQ scores, but more generally to the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment, to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria or as the act of understanding. When looking for a candidate to fulfil a position, it’s important to look for a critical thinker, someone who has the ability to make sense out of a complicated project, to figure out the next step when a project has gone haywire or to calm down an angry customer. In the same LinkedIn Survey, critical thinking ranked in the top 5 most sought after soft skills by employers.
Emotional intelligence plays an important role in this too. When hiring for you organisation, you need someone who is able to function well with you, your team and your customers.
Goal oriented
HR specialist, Liz Ryan, says when hiring, she looks for someone who expects more out of their work than just a pay check. Having goals, a vision and a plan for development in your work environment are great qualities in a potential candidate. This not only resonates on a work level, but on a personal level too. Ryan continues by stressing the importance of someone who also values their life outside of work.
Asking questions to engage with and understand the candidate’s goals will help you understand better how serious the candidate is about setting and reaching goals, and in essence establishing a career within your organisation.
Using these metrics and more while conducting the interview process will help improve your hiring process, reducing the amount of new hire fails and ensuring you fill your positions with the best suited candidates.