There is much debate among entrepreneurs and business owners about hiring for personality or hiring for specific skills.
The August issue of Inc. magazine featured an interview with Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, and Robert Herjavec, most famously of the television show “Shark Tank,” on their opposing sides of this issue.
Branson prefers to hire for personality and experience because “company knowledge and job-specific skills can be learned,” he told Inc. He believes personality and being open to transferable skills usually results in team players. Herjavec espouses a hiring philosophy that seeks a specific skill set for the position and will weed out candidates who express flexibility in their focus on the skills for which he is screening. “To me, someone in sales needs to be laser focused on achieving their target and driving for that number,” he told Inc.
While both are highly successful at building and operating businesses, the current trend in hiring seems to be leaning Branson’s way.
If you’ve worked for a company for any length of time, you have certainly seen change occur in response to outside influences: the internet, customer patterns and market cycles. One of the biggest changes in recent decades is the movement to work in teams within the organization, and with that, hiring for personality has moved to the forefront. The focus moved away from the individual and eliminated the need for companies to put up with unpleasant outliers who don’t cooperate with co-workers just because they do their particular jobs well.
Hiring managers look for someone who is a good fit with the current cast of workers. They screen candidates more for attitude, openness to new experiences and other intangible qualities. This is more important for service-based companies that offer much of the same products as their competitors but set themselves apart by emphasizing stellar customer service.
A study conducted by the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia International Business School found employers are searching not only for what an employee can do but also how he does it and how he carries himself while doing it, according to author Joel Goldstein on LifeHack.org. He lists six traits that modern employers look for.
Confidence and professionalism occupy the first two slots. Candidates may have a great resume, but if they don’t greet someone with a good handshake or look them in the eye during transactions, they have blown the all-important first impression.
Third, being open to new experiences is important, according to the UTM study, because it promotes creativity and technical innovation.
Fourth, intellectual curiosity identifies the employee who wants to actively participate in superior problem solving and how the company really works for both the customers and the staff.
The last two listings are agreeableness and self-monitoring.
Agreeableness is the foundation of the best characteristics for new hires. Someone who is agreeable is open to training; they are positive, and they are more helpful and supportive.
Being someone who can self-monitor is the outward demonstration of ambition, willingness to work and trustworthiness. It demonstrates maturity and the type of character for someone driven to provide quality and value from their presence rather than just to fill a spot for a paycheck.
All of these qualities are built from lessons instilled over a lifetime. By identifying these qualities and basing hiring decisions upon them, a business can step ahead by filling a position with someone who will fit in with the organization’s team.
Brad Crain is president and CEO of Arvest Bank in Springfield. He can reached at bcrain@arvest.com.
