Does this scenario sound familiar to you?

In your quest to find the best candidate for an open position, you: first review hundreds of resumes, next interview a variety of candidates, and finally, hire the person whose skills and years of experience best match your requirements on your checklist.  Then a couple of months after the hiring decision is finalized, you realize or hear that your “perfect fit” hasn’t lived up to expectations.  

A candidate who has overpromised but under delivers is more common than you may think.  If you can relate to this, on your mission to find the most skilled candidate for the position, you may have neglected to take these 2 additional factors into heavier consideration: personal traits and motivation.

“When making a hiring decision, you want to ensure that you are investing in an employee who is invested in your business,” advises Ed Fleischman, CEO of The Execu|Search Group.  “Skill level can be an important factor, especially in certain fields such as medicine, but it’s also essential to remember that in many industries, skills can be learned, while personal characteristics and one’s degree of motivation cannot.  I typically find that the more motivated candidate with better character has the most potential.”

Here are some reasons why these factors are so important when assessing candidates:

Personal Traits

Personal traits are intrinsic and cannot be easily changed as they typically drive one’s behavior.  As a result, when interviewing candidates, you really want to get a good feel for whether or not their personal traits align with your business and will drive them to succeed in the role.   As Ed points out, “If a candidate has all the skills and experience for the position on paper, but something in your gut tells you, for example, that they may have an issue with authority or a penchant for acting unprofessional, this should raise some red flags.  It doesn’t matter if they are one of the most highly regarded professionals in the field – if they could negatively disrupt the corporate culture, or leave a bad impression with your clients, you might want to reconsider.”  As a guideline, here are some positive characteristics to look out for in candidates:

• Ethical
• Excellent Communicator
• Professional
• Hard-working
• Creative
• Decisive
• Adaptable

Degree of Motivation

When interviewing candidates, it’s imperative to find out if your top choices will be motivated to do what it takes to ensure sure their job is done well.  To determine this, it’s important to be honest with yourself and ask yourself these questions:

• Will this person enjoy coming to work every day?
• Do they fit in with our company culture?
• What about this opportunity excites them?

Why? The person who enjoys coming to work, fits well into the team, and is enthusiastic about the role, is also the person who will be motivated to go the extra mile, come in early, leave late, and take the initiative to earn more responsibilities.

“If a candidate for a job opportunity has 60% -70% of the skills required for the position, but they are driven, they will have no problem picking up the additional 30%-40% as they get more accustomed to the position,” explains Ed.  “Their growth potential will surpass that of the more skilled and experienced candidate who isn’t as interested in expanding the scope of their responsibilities or working outside of the traditional 40-hour work week.”

As emphasized earlier, the candidate who is more invested in learning the business, building a rapport with their team, and going that extra mile to accomplish impactful results may be the better choice.  If this candidate has less experience than what you may have originally been looking for, have no fear.  Given the opportunity to prove themselves, people can surprise you by exceeding expectations.