6 Attributes To Seek Out in a New Hire


6 Attributes To Seek Out in a New Hire

The list of traits to look for in a new hire is long. It also necessarily varies with the demands of the position you’re hiring for.

However, most successful employees have a core set of attributes that distinguish them from their less remarkable peers. As a leader, it’s your job to look for candidates who appear likely to blossom into such employees, or who’ve already proven their success in prior positions.

These aren’t the only six attributes your company should prize in candidates for posted positions. But they’re all crucial—and, fortunately, not hard to come by if you know where to look.

  1. Self-Motivation

In an increasingly fast-moving world, self-starting employees are more important than ever. Screen new hires by their proven ability to self-start in previous roles, as well as their professed willingness to take on new projects with minimal direction if offered the role they’re interviewing for.

“Employers look for ‘self-directed’ new hires,” employment guru Liz Ryan writes in Forbes. “They want people who know what they want and are willing to work for it.”

Employees who don’t know what they want, or who wait to be told what it is they should want, require more hands-on management. That, in turn, diverts limited resources from higher-value work.

  1. Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is another critical characteristic every new hire needs. For many business owners, trust comes before almost anything else, including technical expertise or relevant experience.

“Trustworthiness is a very important attribute in every member of your workforce, especially with new hires” says George Otte, a Miami-based entrepreneur and computer repair expert.

“In the digital age, one of the most important considerations revolves around your ability to protect sensitive company data online,” he adds. It is critical to hire employees that share your view, have previous experience, and value of the importance of data protection and confidentiality.

  1. Grace Under Pressure

Successful employees perform superbly under pressure, no matter what they’re asked to do or how much they’re required to process at once. Though it’s difficult to know for sure whether a new hire will wilt or blossom during periods of heightened stress, you can use pointed, specific interview questions to gain insight into the candidate’s prior high-pressure experience. You can also employ practical evaluations that simulate real-world pressure situations and evaluate the candidate’s performance.

  1. Long-Term Planning Abilities

Just as they need to show grace under pressure, successful employees need to have planning skills that allow them to structure their time efficiently and maximize their productivity.

Effective planners don’t simply organize their day-to-day activities in the most productive way possible. They think strategically, mapping their activities far out into the future to ensure that large-scale projects remain on track.

  1. Strong Teamwork

The modern workplace favors team players. Junior employees who’ll take roles within larger teams obviously need to be adept at working with others. But senior employees tasked with leading teams or whole departments need to be team players too. Managers and executives who come across as domineering typically get results in the short term, but those results may come at the expense of their reputations as leaders.

  1. Data Analysis Skills

We’re living through a data-driven renaissance with far-reaching implications for the economy and the very nature of work. The upshot is that every employee in a data-adjacent position, even those not directly tasked with developing statistical models or algorithms, needs to have strong data analysis skills and familiarity with basic statistical concepts.

Employees who know how to interpret and analyze raw data have a major advantage over those who need to wait for others to do so on their behalf.

What attributes do you value most in new hires?