Does hiring for attitude really matter

Recruitment is a process riddled with minefields and sinkholes!  The candidate you think is the perfect match ends up being an abysmal disaster and now you are stuck with a non performing employee or  trouble causer or trying to terminate employment without landing up with huge labour costs . I'm sure this rings true for most employers of people . The question I'm often asked is what went wrong with this placement  and what can be done differently . 

I have been in the recruitment game for 21 years and in this time have been extremely diligent when doing recruitment : completing outcomes based interviews , triple checking references , trying to match job needs with candidate skills sets perfectly . No five minute interviews for me nor generic questioning ! It works relatively well to be thorough  yet I still find myself in a position where the perfect employee on paper becomes the perfect nightmare . What more can I do? Looking at the recruitments I've done and candidates I've seen and trying to understand what the problem was  it hit me :  attitude and gut instinct does play a role . Now before you shout about laws being breached and me being too airy fairy hear me out. 

People are different because of their personal belief systems , personalities , community exposures, life exposures and upbringing . Therefore how you feel about the value and importance of keeping your job compared to someone else may be vastly different and in that lies the kicker . This is what you as a recruiter or employer of people need to be watching out for.

How you feel , how you value and what you want to achieve in your job is what makes you different . Someone with no sense of the importance of this is going to always be a problem employee. I see this over and again again when dealing with managing issues for my clients relating to misconduct , incapacity and incompatibility . This has resulted in me always recommending and applying this to any recruitment I do : I watch out for the attitude !

Individuals with a healthy sense of give and take , understanding  of the mutual benefit that needs to be acquired between employer and employee , strong sense of their own self worth , a strong self drive accompanied with a passion to prove themselves and a fire to learn , grow and/or sustain a high performance standard is first prize for me . These characteristics cannot be taught but need to be in place . I will happily hire the candidate with less experience but who ticks all the blocks in terms of the attitude I'm looking for because 9 times out of 10 the rewards are there and you have a employment relationship that allows you to constantly reap the rewards .