Do Not Hire For Skills, Hire For Attitude

Hiring is more than filling open roles with hot bodies.

Don`t make a common mistake in hiring.?Hiring is more than filling open roles with hot bodies.?Do not hire someone for their skills only, hire for their attitude. Otherwise, you may have super subject matter experts in your team without the right character and attitude to fit into the team and this will lead to a loss of collaboration, motivation, trust, and teamwork in the team.?It will diminish the spirit of the company which is everything to success.

Companies do want to find and attract the best talent in the market to be successful in the global markets that are being more and more competitive than ever each day. When they post a vacancy either for a new role or to backfill a vacancy, it is natural for Human Resources to get hundreds of applications even for a single role. In fact, in emerging countries, where good opportunities are less compared to developed countries, companies may get thousands of applications for a single opening. Believe me, I have seen it as a person who lived most of his life in a fast-paced emerging country.

When the restricted resources and opportunities are scarce, hope deteriorates, survival mood prevails, and thus tough competition dominates, resulting in lack of trust and unhappiness in a community.

In this diverse pool of applicants, what are you going to hire for? Technical skills? Yes, this is usually the first answer you may expect to get except for those who see talent in those with the technical skills and hard work to get things done. This is partially correct but is only a small part of the bigger picture.

What about soft skills such as conflict management and persuasion, understanding and managing emotions, strategic thinking, planning, and prioritization, etc…?

How about a good?character?and a good heart?

Why not strong values and ethical principles?

Technical skills are essential to delivering the requirements of a job for sure but it is not the only thing that matters.

Imagine a subject matter expert you hired like a professor who knows all the ins and outs of a technical job. Without the right attitude, such a brilliant mind will be a lone wolf. Without a strong character, he will not establish trust in the team and with his direct and indirect supervisors.?Without a good heart, he will not be true?and cannot influence others — instead, he will lose people around him. Without values, he will be like a leaf blown away from one place to another with each strong wind and will be like a ghost. Without ethical principles, he will never be grounded and be a puppet of those who want to use him or be the victim of his uncontrolled ambitions, never-ending desires, and wild wishes.

It takes more than technical skills to hire someone indeed. A hiring decision not only changes the life of the applicant but also the climate inside your company.?A rotten apple in the basket can spoil the entire bunch?and can even force good employees to leave their job if the new hire is toxic.

Attitude is everything. You can always teach the technical skills a person is missing but you cannot easily compensate for the lack of attitude in a person. It is not a plug-and-play type of thing. You just need to find those with curiosity and passion to learn and be more than who they are. Such people are those who are coachable — they are open to new horizons and can leave their comfort zones.

Think about this when you hire the next time. Try to hire people who compete with others but herself/himself because the ones who can win their inner fight are those who can serve others for the greater good — they do not win alone, they?win with others.

With love,

Kenan

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