Hire for attitude, train for skill.  The traditional model for hiring involves identifying the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities required to do the job.  Then, you use the interview, reference checks and other hiring tools to assess a candidate's level of job-related experience and skill.  Rapid and significant changes are occurring both inside and outside most organizations.  In addition, continuous innovations in technology suggest that jobs (and the skills needed to perform them) will change dramatically starting now and on into the future.  This situation requires you and other leaders in the organization to move beyond the traditional hiring model to "hire for attitude, train for skill."  What do managers need to do to hire for attitude?  How can managers use the interview and other hiring tools to assess candidates' attitudes?

IDENTIFY ATTITUDES

First, identify and clearly define the attitudes that drive successful performance on the job. One way to do this is to identify your top employees within the job and across the company to see what attitudes they share.  As part of my consulting and training work with clients, I frequently ask managers to identify their top employees and list what attitudes they have in common.  The list typically looks something like this:

·         Conscientious

·         Dependable

·         Flexible/open to change

·         Good judgment

·         Has high standards

·         Honest/trustworthy

·         Motivated/self-starter

·         Strong work ethic

·         Team player/works well with others

·         Willing to put forth extra effort/to go the extra mile

DEFINE ATTITUDES AND WRITE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Managers often find it easy to identify top employees and to list the attitudes that they share.  Once they have their list, however, they are usually unsure about what to do next.  Given this list, you need to clearly define each attitude or value.  It is very important to clearly define an attitude.  Managers frequently use words like "flexible," or "open to change" to describe what they are looking for in a good job candidate.  These words can, however, mean different things to different people.  Ideally, the definition of an attitude should include some concrete, specific behavior.  After the attitude is clearly defined using behavioral information, then you need to develop interview questions that will provide information about the candidate in these areas. 

Using a few of the attitudes listed in this article; here are sample definitions and an interview question for each attitude.

The following guidelines will help you create good interview questions to assess candidates' attitudes:

·         The best predictor of future performance is past performance.  Nothing accurately predicts future performance 100% of the time.  What someone does in the past is, however, the best predictor of what they are likely to do in the future.

·         Make interview questions open-ended.  Closed-ended questions can be answered with "yes," or "no."  You are likely to get more information and better quality information when asking open-ended questions.

·         Make questions non-evaluative.  Job candidates can sometimes tell the answer that you are looking for by how a question is worded.  Take the time to make sure that your interview questions do not "lead" candidates usually get more honest and detailed answers from candidates.

 CONCLUSION

Given the significant changes occurring in today's workforce, a "hire for attitude, train for skill," approach to hiring makes sense.  For this approach to work, you must carefully identify that attitudes associated with successful performance on the job.  More important, you must clearly define those attitudes using behavioral questions.  Finally, you must carefully craft interview questions that provide detailed responses from candidates while, at the same time, that do not lead or encourage the candidate to answer a certain way.