A commonly used, or heard, phrase in the recruitment world is, “hire for attitude, train for skill.” Like every catchy one-liner, there’s a lot to unpack when it comes to determining its merit.
As you consider your hiring strategy, it’s worth looking into the practice of hiring for attitude and how it might make a difference for your company.
Hiring for Attitude
What it Means
When a company puts this phrase into practice, it means they are using a values-based recruitment strategy. Instead of having a candidate’s skill set being the only determining factor, a hiring team will greatly consider the candidate’s soft skills as well.
The job description, with detailed and specific technical skill requirements, are still crucial to finding a good hire. Along with that, taking into consideration the soft skills or attitude and values of a candidate are important too. Plus, if you have a few candidates with similar technical experience, using the soft skills as a deciding factor can be a smart decision in the long run.
Three Benefits of Hiring for Attitude
Employee Retention
One of the biggest reasons for employees voluntarily leaving a job is because they feel disconnected from the company and its values. When you consider hiring for attitude, you are, in part, looking for candidates who align with your company’s values and mission. This builds a greater connection and sense of purpose for your new hires and can help contribute to employee engagement, satisfaction and even retention.
Cost-Effective
If you have the ability to train candidates who may be lacking in a particular skill, you will be able to save money on that hire. On the other hand, if there’s no room for training a new hire on a skill they may be lacking, you will be forced to compensate more because of the required technical skills. When candidates don’t have an expected skill required for the position, they can’t have the high demands for wages or salaries. Obviously, it will be crucial to have the ability to properly train or certify new hires to make the “hire for attitude” strategy be worth the cost-effective benefit. Of course, eventually they will be worth more than your initial compensation, but those savings can add up, especially if their attitudes will help keep them at your company longer.
Flexibility
If your company is an agile company, the flexibility of hiring for attitude may be a huge benefit. Instead of hiring someone with a set skill, hiring someone who has the ability to be trained can help you determine the best fit for them as the company realizes their greatest needs. This may be most helpful for a startup company or small business where employees might wear many hats. In this case, soft skills like problem solving, enthusiasm, flexibility, and curiosity can be much more valuable than a list of technical skills.
Hiring for Attitude: Put it into Practice
As you can see, hiring for attitude isn’t an abandonment of job requirements. Instead, it can provide the company with a different approach – more human approach – to recruitment. It’s important to consider which skills for any job position are must-haves, and which ones might be able to be trained on-the-job.
Then, consider which soft skills, or attitude traits, are most important to your company. From here, you can have a holistic approach to hiring the best person to not only do the job, but align with the company.
Find a Candidate Who Will Strengthen Your Team
If you need help finding the right hire, contact Expert Staffing.