Qualities to Look for in a Top Candidate (Guest blog)

Hiring can be a big job. It can be made easier when you know what qualities to look for such as communication skills, work ethic, a good attitude, a team player, goal-oriented, dependability, and organization. Here are the seven qualities to look for in a top candidate.

1 Communication Skills

A top candidate must be able to demonstrate that they can communicate well with other team members. This means not only speaking and writing so directions that they give are clear, but also that they sound confident in what they have to say and that the other team members. It’s important that one uses their communication skills effectively so that clients, management, and team members will take them seriously. 

Employees, both current and potential, must not be afraid to communicate with management about any help they need. Part of this rests on management to make themselves available for communication, but as long as this is the case, if an employee has a problem and needs help to resolve it, they should be ready and willing to speak with management.

A good interview question for this is: “Imagine you have an important deadline coming up later today. Your boss tells you that a new assignment has come up that takes priority of other projects and it needs to be done by the end of day. How do you handle this?” Or simply: “Imagine that you have two projects that are due at the same time, but you only have time to complete one of them. How do you handle this?”

How the potential employee answers these questions will say a lot about their confidence and communication style.

A top candidate must be able to communicate effectively with clients about what they’re looking for. Along with good communication skills, having good listening skills and knowing what information they need to be able to help coworkers or clients and how to go about getting that information is extremely important.

2 Work Ethic

Because 73% of hiring managers look for candidates with a strong work ethic, it is an important quality for all top performers to possess. No one wants to work with someone who doesn’t want to be there and who doesn’t want to do their job. That shows unreliability in an employee. While work ethic is something many companies look for in new hires and ask of their employees, most people are not able to define what it is. Work ethic can be defined as how you feel about your job and career and the moral value you place in work and doing a job to the best of your abilities. Here are some ways that you can demonstrate a good work ethic to your employer, current or perspective:

• Do your job to the best of your ability – If your job is to make 10 sales per day, make those per day or more if you can.
• Show integrity in your work – that means doing the right thing even if no one is watching. If you had a staff lunch or meeting with donuts and no one helped clean up after leaving, take a minute to clean up. If you made an error on an assignment, take the time to go back and do it over again correctly. If people can see that you do the right thing on your job, they will trust you to take on bigger assignments.

An interview questions you can ask to help determine work ethic would be something such as, “When was a time you’ve gone above and beyond in a role to get the job done?” People want to work with someone who can get the job done, but if you need some extra information or help getting the job done, let people know. If you can’t get an assignment on time, have a plan for when you can get it done, what, if any, additional resources you need, and then let management know. They will appreciate your honesty and will probably give you what you need to get things done.

3 A Good Attitude

Having a positive attitude in the workplace is important. It might not necessarily make you better at your job, but it will give people a better impression of you. If they see that you are having a hard time with a project, but that you are upbeat that you can fix it with some help, they will be more inclined to want to help you than if they see you complaining and grumbling about the difficulties you are running into.

A positive attitude can also rub off on others, especially in stressful times, someone who is positive and gives encouragement and support to others can help the rest of the team feel better. Just make sure that their interactions with people are genuine. People will reactive negatively if they feel that they are putting on a false venire of positivity.

4 Team Player

A productive team is one that works together and supports one another, whether that is helping out with a project that one team member is having trouble with or talking through how to solve a large problem together. Having an employee that can engage with other teammates is highly crucial as highly engaged teams are 21% more profitable than those who are not.

A team player is important to have in the office, as they are interested not only in their well-being but also in the well-being of the team. This can take many forms, from knowing when to ask for and give help or support to learning from others or being willing to teach someone something they know. A team member who helps their coworkers, either with a new skill, helping them work through a problem, or just listening to them vent, is a valuable team member as they help keep the team united and improving.

5 Goal Oriented

Businesses are goal oriented, whether that is selling a certain number of products in a day, week, month, or quarter, or completing a project in a certain time. Businesses look for people who are goal oriented in new hires. Employers should look or ask for examples from candidates of how they are goal oriented to demonstrate they can achieve success for your business. This can be how they met or exceeded a goal for work, or how they improved a business process to make it easier to achieve and exceed their goals. 

Similarly, search to hire people or businesses who also value their goals. Are your potential vendor candidates goal oriented? Do your real estate development goals line up with your prospective property management goals? Employees and businesses who are goal oriented demonstrate that they are responsible and can be counted on to meet goals and deadlines.

6 Dependability

As stated above, employees who can demonstrate that they can meet and achieve goals on time show that they can be there when you need them most. They also show that they are loyal to the team and to the company. If they are meeting their goals, then that helps the team meet its goal and vice versa.

A dependable employee is one who is loyal to the team and the company. You can count on them to do their part and that they will go the extra mile if another team member is struggling.

One can see dependability by looking at how long they have stayed with previous employers, just make sure you check with that employer to see how they were as a worker. Not everyone who stayed at a company for a long time was a good worker.

7 Organization

Organization skills is essential for a productive worker. If an employee is organized, it shows that they pay attention to detail and have a system or process in place.
It also shows that they are proactive in organizing tasks before they get started doing something. This shows time management skills and that they know when projects are due and how long they have to complete it.

Organization is an important skill for a candidate to have because it shows they can stay on top of their tasks. An employee who is organized will know what they have to get done and by when. This will make it easier for them to see if there is a task that they will need more time than expected to complete and will help them to adjust accordingly.

Finding the right employee for your company

Reference this list of qualities can help you in avoiding making the wrong hire for your business. Use this list to create a list of questions to make sure that your next hire has all seven of these distinct qualities in order to hire a top candidate!