Read on to discover the top nine qualities to consider when hiring employees, Trust. A self-confident employee will often be productive as well. Ability to work in a team. Employers should know that the people they hire can expand and change as their companies do.
When it comes to predicting job performance in the real world, especially the aspects that are more focused on the tasks of the job, cognitive ability is the key. Cognitive ability can be described as “the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, understand complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience and is therefore essential for learning and problem solving in the workplace. It is especially important in professional, technical or managerial work, which involves a high degree of cognitive complexity. Cognitive ability is measured by aptitude tests, which usually include tests of verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, and inductive (logical) reasoning.
The combination of these three tests will provide a general measure of general cognitive ability, which is more useful for predicting the quality of hiring than any specific aptitude on an individual basis. In general, this makes ability tests the most useful tools and makes cognitive ability the most important individual quality to consider when hiring. Scrupulosity is an important personality trait that underpins how focused, diligent, obedient and thorough people are. Scrupulosity is perhaps the most studied personality trait in occupational psychology and has the strongest evidence base for use in making hiring decisions.
Employers often include “work ethic” and “attention to detail” in their hiring criteria, and both concepts are well reflected in the personality trait of conscience. So, when looking for the qualities of a productive employee, awareness is the trait to focus on. Consciousness, like most personality traits, is best measured by personality questionnaires, especially those that are designed according to the Big Five Personality Model. This allows organizations to measure awareness directly, since awareness is not effectively measured through job interviews.
In addition, it also allows organizations to measure this construct in a scalable way, since personality questionnaires are usually completed online and administration is easily automated. Resilience has important implications for both performance and well-being in the workplace, making it a common hiring criterion. Resilience allows employees to cope with stress and pressure, and serves as a bulwark against exhaustion and stress-related illnesses. It also ensures that employees remain focused and energetic in the face of obstacles or setbacks, preventing them from giving up or losing hope.
Resilience is particularly important in high-pressure positions, such as management, sales, or customer service professions. Read our article on why resilience matters in the workplace. Emotional intelligence is a person's ability to recognize, understand and interpret the emotions of other people and within themselves. It has enormous implications both for interpersonal interaction and for the internal regulation of emotions.
This means that highly emotionally intelligent employees will work better with their colleagues, customers, stakeholders and managers, helping to avoid conflict and build strong relationships. It also allows employees to track their own emotions, avoiding emotional outbursts or counterproductive emotionality. Although emotional intelligence does have an interpersonal component, it is not well measured through an interview. Instead, personality questionnaires are required to measure emotional intelligence and, in fact, will require a specific emotional intelligence scale.
Likewise, evaluations designed only to measure emotional intelligence will be useful, as they will provide a deeper insight into this particular quality. Learn why emotional intelligence matters in the workplace. Hard work is a person's level of drive, motivation, and tenacity when striving to achieve accomplishments. Industriousness is closely related to conscientiousness, since both sustain a person's work ethic, but conscientiousness is more related to organization, while industriousness has more to do with motivational drive.
It is an essential hiring criterion in any position that involves measurable goals, quotas, or performance results. Start today by requesting a demo or posting a job for free to discover how Workable can help you find and hire great people. Unlike other qualities to consider when hiring employees, employers have an ethical duty to ensure that future employees have the resilience needed for the position; otherwise, they will knowingly put employees at undue risk of exhaustion and stress-related illnesses. We hope that these examples have given you an idea of how to evaluate the qualities to consider when hiring an employee.
Turn-over can be expensive given the investment in training new employees, and companies don't want to hire someone who doesn't have potential as a long-term employee. Some hiring managers may ask prospective new employees to complete a task or work on a project to better illustrate their skill set. Excellent communication is one of the best qualities to look for in a potential candidate for any job. While employers often ask what qualities they should consider when hiring employees, this question has largely been answered by academic research.
Knowing these important qualities to look for in an employee means you have a better chance of hiring the best people and avoiding the frightening costs of making a bad hire. There are certain qualities that companies look for when hiring new employees, which can often be discovered in the first interview. Recruiters and hiring managers often ask prospective employees how well they work as a team and what type of work environment they prefer. Companies must work to retain as many hard-working staff as possible and make good hiring decisions to avoid losses in training new employees.
HR managers know that hiring the wrong person for a job can be a frustrating and disappointing experience, both for the company and for the new employee. While every organization wants to hire the best possible employees, they may not be sure what to look for when hiring. Willingness and, ultimately, the ability to learn are very important qualities of a good employee, not only for learning new hard skills, but also for growing as a professional and as a person. .