In searching for the ideal candidate, human resources professionals train and hone their interviewing skills. They must identify the characteristics that best match their company’s needs. Many hiring managers also have these skills finely tuned.
These basic characteristics precede and enable an employees knowledge, skills and experience in the workplace.
There are basic characteristics that are important for candidates to have no matter what the job is. These includes both fit with company culture and ability of a candidate to perform the job. You may have more for your firm to add to these 5.
- Good attitude. A successful candidate must have a good attitude about the value of work. No one is entitled to a job, they must seek meaningful employment, land the job, and keep it. Good employees know to have a job is valuable and then put forth a positive attitude.
- Appropriate behavior. All employees must respect others in the workplace including management and other employees. They must behave on the job in a respectful manner across for gender, race and other differences ensuring a comfortable workplace environment.
- Willingness to work for pay. Employment is a fair exchange. This means that while on the job, employees do work to the quality and production expectations for that job, and in tern the employer provides a paycheck. Anything less is not a fair exchange.
- Safety focused. In the workplace, no matter what the work or industry, safety is paramount. No one in the workplace benefits from taking unnecessary risk. Employees must be aware of their actions when safety is sacrificed.
- Leadership. Every employee must have leadership skills. They must be able to see how their attitude, behavior, willingness to work and keeping themselves and others safe is leadership.
The last characteristic is probably the hardest characteristic to measure, and yet the most critical. Leadership also extends into the way a candidate takes initiative to improve processes and results for their employer. At the all levels in a company, hiring managers should hire leaders.
Hiring managers, if you hire people on your team that exhibit a good attitude, appropriate behavior, and willingness to work for pay while keeping a focus on safety, you will be successful in your own career.
Barton Staffing Solutions also focuses on these 5 characteristics in the temporary staff we send out to our client sites. As we screen candidates, we look for these characteristics even when they are not on the job description. Learn more at www.BartonStaffing.com.
