Tips & Guides

Understanding and mastering the headhunting industry

Why attitude matters as much if not more than aptitude.

As a hiring manager your role is to bring the best candidates forward for your company. This includes the technical skills, experience and past accomplishments. How many times has it happened that the candidate has all that it takes but the attitude is just not there?

Candidate positive attitude

Attitude will help the employee through the ups and downs. Attitude will help the employee with the “long run”. Those candidates with great attitudes tend to stay in their jobs longer because they can weather the storm more than those that give up at the first sign of trouble.

More employers are taking more time to evaluate the personalities of their candidates than ever before. How you treat your co-workers, customers and suppliers says a lot about how far you will go in life and how much repeat business you will get. The candidate will also represent your company during events.

How do you know that the attitude that you see during the interviews will stay? Ask the candidates about difficult situations and how they handled them. Ask them about their most challenging people that they have dealt with and how they handled them. Look at their body language and words they us to describe those situations. Were they open and forthcoming? Did they finish on a positive note? Was it always somebody else’s fault? If something does not seem right, probe for more information. And of course, probe for answers during the reference stage if you still have doubts.

A positive attitude is more than wishing and hoping, it’s more about looking on the bright side and making things happen by being a catalyst for change when things aren’t exactly going your way. It is also about learning from those less than positive experiences and not repeating them.

A candidate with a positive attitude tends to carry that attitude throughout their professional and personal life. They tend to make things happen so look for these things during the interview process.

by Dawn Williams, President of Sirius Personnel

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