5 Characteristics Or Skills You Aren’t Thinking Of When It Comes To A New Hire

Kevin Gardner
3 min readFeb 13, 2018

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A business owner wants to have a potential new hire walk into their office and be exactly their picture perfect candidate right from the start. As the Rolling Stones remind us though, “You can’t always get what you want”. Rare is the day that exactly the right person comes to the interview. Instead, you just might have to dig a little deeper into the soul of the person sitting before you to try to figure out a little more about who they really are. If you have recently asked yourself “what is workforce development?”, we want to take a look at some of the characteristics that you have probably forgotten to be on the lookout for when designing your team.

Intensity

For a lot of us, our fathers instructed us from an early age to always have a firm handshake. There is a reason this tradition is passed down from fathers and sons. It all has to do with sending the right message to the person on the other end of that handshake. That is a message of intensity.

You want the person you are interviewing to be someone of intensity. Business Insider says that it might be a helpful tactic to tell the person you are interviewing that the job they are applying for is going to be the hardest of their life, but it will also be the most rewarding. The person who sticks with it after that little pep talk is likely a person of intensity.

Consider Their Financial Situation

A lot of companies get tied up in thinking about what an employee is going to cost the company. Few stop to think about what the company can provide to that person. Only when that question is contemplated can a business start to realize what kind of quality person they are considering hiring.

This is not meant to be discriminatory, but rather to ensure that the person you hire is not broke and desperate as Dave Ramsey puts it. Those kind of people tend to be thinking only about their personal situation, and they are not likely to contribute as much of value to the team.

Presentation Skills

The way in which a candidate dresses and presents themselves can shine a light into how they will adjust to their new job if hired. A lot of workplaces rely on their employees being able to give presentations from time to time. It could be a pitch to a big corporate client, or even just a small meeting group among their co-workers. Regardless, those skills are essential in the modern workplace. Look for clues about their aptitude in this area by the way they present themselves during the interview.

Teamwork Abilities

It does not matter how independent a particular job is, having a team player around is critical. No one wants to work with someone that they do not feel that they can trust. Those who show the strongest level of character and teamwork abilities are the kind of people you want to have working for you.

Presenting a prospective hire with a challenge in which they must cooperate with another individual can be a good way to determine their level of teamwork abilities.

Correct Values

This does not mean that a person has to agree with all of your political, social, or religious views to be a good hire, but it does mean that they should be able to fit in with the culture already established at your company. They should have the same kind of vision as the overall company. It should be easy to see how adding them to the group would bring the company closer to achieving its goals. If those things are possible, then you might have an excellent hire on your hands.

Consider a reasonable number of candidates on these factors and any others that are important to you in order to find the right people. Sometimes this search takes some time, but it is better to spend that time finding the right person rather than settling for someone who is not the right fit.

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Kevin Gardner
Kevin Gardner

Written by Kevin Gardner

Kevin Gardner graduated with a BS in Computer Science and an MBA from UCLA. He works as a business consultant for InnovateBTS

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