Making the right hire for your business is essential to its success, not just for today but more importantly, for the future – but how do you get it right? According to Hays CEO, Alistair Cox, there are five key traits that can help any hiring manager identify top talent.
Alistair shares these in his latest
LinkedIn Influencer blog, and also says that to drive your company forward, as a leader you must ensure you have the perfect fit for your business. Alistair says, “During my career I have been lucky enough to meet some of the best and brightest job seekers around, those people who have not just excelled in an interview, but have gone on to do great things for my business.”
To identify such talent, Alistair says you should look for candidates with:
- A vision for the future - To safeguard a business against the future, an organisation needs people who are able to look forward. They need to have an understanding of the direction the industry, as well as the business, is heading. Alistair says, “I want to hire employees who also have a clear view of the bigger picture, those who have a vision for the future of the business and the industry they are working in and can communicate this to their colleagues and teams.”
- Digital makers, not digital observers - The advancement of technology has had a big impact on business and will continue to do so. That is why hiring skills for tomorrow is extremely important. Alistair says “I am not just looking for candidates who are observing these skills, telling me how important they will be for the future, but those that are actively up-skilling themselves and who have an appetite and aptitude to learn quickly. These are the people who will help your business make and lead new trends.”
- Shared values - It is important that a company and its employees share the same values. If your employees believe in your company’s ethics and what they are striving to achieve, you will get more out of them. Alistair says “A business’ values underpin the way they operate every day and I always look for hires who are driven and passionate about similar principles. If a candidate’s values differ from that of an organisation, you are unlikely to get the best out of them.”
- A complementary fit - Not only must you hire people who share the same values as your business but you also need to find someone who is able to work alongside their new colleagues. Placing an employee into the wrong team, where perhaps their skills and personality don’t fit, can be disruptive. Alistair says “I am looking for candidates who can not only bring something a bit different to the table, someone who will push and drive a team forward, but also someone who complements the skills and personalities of the existing team.”
- EQ as well as IQ - Emotional intelligence (EQ) is difficult to evaluate during the hiring process but assessing whether a potential employee will be able to gain the respect of their colleagues, as well as lead and motivate, is vital. Alistair says, “Look for candidates who can demonstrate good people skills, honesty and are good listeners; you often find that these skills can come from the most unlikely of places.”
Making the wrong decision when hiring staff can be costly and time consuming. Taking these five pointers into consideration and thinking about your business’s long term needs can help you avoid that. It will also ensure that you have the correct skill set for tomorrow and, importantly, people with the passion to carry on your success.
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About Hays
Hays plc (the "Group") is a leading global professional recruiting group. The Group is the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in the UK and Asia Pacific and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe and Latin America. The Group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments. As at 30 June 2015 the Group employed 9,023 staff operating from 240 offices in 33 countries across 20 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2015:
– the Group reported net fees of £764.2 million and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £164.1 million;
– the Group placed around 63,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 200,000 people into temporary assignments;
– 23% of Group net fees were generated in Asia Pacific, 41% in Continental Europe & RoW (CERoW) and 36% in the United Kingdom & Ireland;
– the temporary placement business represented 58% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 42% of net fees;
– Hays operates in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA