Attitude and Aptitude determine Altitude.

According to various studies, 48% of new hires fail within 18 months.

Two reasons are cited:

Reason 1: Hiring managers focus only on one aspect of the 7 essentials: hard skills and knowledge.

While skills and knowledge are important, without the other 6, they will not matter.

Sometimes the best candidates don’t do well on classical skills/knowledge interviews.

Doing well on such an interview and doing a job well are two very different things.

When you interview someone, include real on the job pairing assignments where a candidate performs some tasks together with employee or employees. This will enable you to observe the other 6 essentials in action. Make sure that you treat the candidate like you would an employee - by providing clarity, encouragement, and support.

Reason 2: New hires are not given proper support during this critical 18 months period by their superiors, such as, training, mentoring, encouragement, acclimation, feedback.

Even when a stellar candidate is hired, their confidence, ambition, and even attitude are often shattered by lack of that support.

It does not make sense to hire smart people, and then have them follow stupid rules, or not listening to their feedback, or not to give them proper information and training.

---

I hired several candidates who did not do well on interviews.

In once case, she was an Oracle DBA with a gap in employment. My team highlighted her technical deficiencies, but pointed out all the positives in soft skills and her potential and her aptitude. I decided to give her a chance. We hired her on a temp basis, then converted her to an employee. Within 2 years she was in charge of the group.

--

Hire for attitude and aptitude !

Do you agree ?

--

Popular articles and Posts

Loyal employees are worth much more than their weight in gold (133,000 likes)

If you think good employees are expensive, try bad employees (66,000 likes)

How to give BEST PEOPLE what they want. (63,000 Likes)

I made an offer to someone, and then I got a call from the previous manager. OMG (57,000 Likes)

I hired someone who did NOT answer any of my questions. (42,000 likes)

How to be BRAVE. (33,000 Likes)

How to stop BEST PEOPLE from being WORST MANAGERS. (30,000 likes)

It does not make sense to hire chess players and then treat them like chess pieces. (24,000 Likes)

How to stop BEST PEOPLE from Leaving. (22,000 Likes)

Best People Get Fired for Cause. (22,000 Likes)