3 Things To Look For To Hire the Right People

I was facilitating a recent certification training program, and I got a question that I’ve been asked hundreds of times: “how do you make sure you hire the right person for a job?”

The question came during a section related to using McQuaig assessments for hiring. While many clients use our assessments to gain valuable insight into candidates’ natural temperament, some are surprised to discover that the tools go beyond assessment results. In addition to using assessment tools for accurate feedback about a candidate, here are three things to look for to make sure you’re hiring the right people.

1) Passion – Hiring someone who’s passionate about what they’ll be doing will set you both up for success. For you as the hiring manager, it can simplify onboarding and training, and can even improve coaching and development of the employee as time goes on. As for your new hire, they’ll be off to a great start by running with what they already know – which gets you to the goal line sooner. The best way to do this is by aligning a person’s responsibilities to what comes naturally for them. When you do what you love, it doesn’t feel like work. And in order for your employees to love what they do, it’s important for their role to align with their natural temperament.

2) Compatibility – It’s important to find employees who fit with your organization’s culture. You can hire someone with all the knowledge, skills and abilities that fit the job – but if they don’t fit well with the culture, it can be tough for the entire team. The trick here is to look for candidates with a high level of emotional intelligence. The higher a person’s EI, the more likely they are to have the interpersonal skills that can create amazing professional relationships. It can also be helpful to understand candidates’ personality profiles, which can be identified through an assessment tool. Their profile type will speak to how they might interact within your organization, and their compatibility with your company culture.

3) Top Performer – It goes without saying that any hiring manager or organization wants to hire a top performer. The challenge is separating true top performers from exaggerators. An easy way to do this is by using an assessment tool, which can offer information that’s typically hidden beneath the surface of what you see in an interview and read on a resume. Assessments can identify the personality traits that a candidate will likely demonstrate after being hired. A critical piece to this analysis is to have a benchmark for the hiring position in place. This way, you can easily compare a candidate’s natural traits to the personality requirements of the position. When compared side by side, a top performer is typically a natural fit for the role.

Check for passion, determine compatibility, and assess for the top performers: the winning combination. Remember – just like the answers in an interview, assessment results have to be interpreted and used in context. Some users mistakenly see the results in black-and-white terms, but they’re much more powerful when used as a guide. Soon, you’ll be finding the right people for the job sooner – and you’ll probably be seeing them stick around a lot longer, too.