Personality & Attitude Assessment is the Biggest Challenge in Hiring the Right IT Professional. Agree?

Personality & Attitude Assessment is the Biggest Challenge in Hiring the Right IT Professional. Agree?

We all know from our experiences so far that an employee’s performance is a right blend of attitude and hard skills. Attitude determines how the employee is going to handle work pressure, how efficiently will he or she be able to interact with the higher-ups and the colleagues, and how will they represent the organization in front of the clients. Hard skills, on the contrary are what makes the personnel capable of carrying out the job.

However, every HR professional agrees to one core principle of hiring

“Hire for Attitude, Train for Skills”.

While checking on a candidate’s attitude and behavior there are a number of factors that you should consider before zeroing down on the right person for a specific position, especially then when you are looking for an IT professional.

Here are a few signs bifurcated as per the selection stages, that will help you to get a handle on how the potential hire will be, and allow you to take a fair call.

Screening Stage

While the project-based assessment is a good opportunity for you to measure the thinking skills of the person, it also speaks a lot about their attitude.
Hence, ensure that you do a background check to find out if the candidate is speaking about fake projects, and ask the questions to make sure that this is not a case of nil involvement in real projects.
An experienced staffing agency has a keen eye on how a CV is presented as that is the first chance for the potential candidate to make an impression. Moreover, the CV is what helps in analysing the person’s level of experience, to the number of jobs they have done and mentioned about in the resume.
Like we have mentioned earlier, hard skills are as important as soft skills, hence, hence wire on the hiring spree ensure that you hire a candidate who brings in the required skills to the job. A good way of judging a potential employee is by checking if they have multiple CVs in the portal with varying skillsets.

Pre-Interview Stage

A slack attitude is a big NO. Which is why when the candidate in question is not available for interview after the first HR call, it is more like a yellow light flickering over the candidate’s profile, telling you to be careful. Moreover, even if you decide to go further with the interview maybe because the skillsets of the person are too much of a match for the job, if the person is not on time for the HR interview, that too clearly states that there are feeble chances of the person taking up the job.
The other most important look-out is to notice the keenness of the candidate. A good hire will never be too busy to fill any HR forms, rather than expecting the HR to do it for them. In addition to that, repeated re-scheduling of the HR or technical rounds also highlights that the candidate isn’t very much interested in taking up the role.
The third point in the list is to see if the person has multiple job offers in hand, and is still ready to take up your interview call. This is not a good sign and may lead to the employee quitting early, looking for greener pastures.

Interview Stage

To absolutely apply ‘attitude fraud’ as a standard practice is what makes the whole interviewing process a success. Therefore, a good staffing agency will always notice the disparity in case the person attending the telephonic interview is different from the person attending the face to face round. Another key point to note is whether or not the person is carrying a CV for the interview.
Body language speaks a lot about a person’s behavioral traits. The best way to assess someone based on body language is by noticing if the person has a negative body language, or sitting in front of the interview panel with crossed arms signals a defensive attitude. The most prominent sign of a negative body language is no eye contact during the interview process, which depicts low confidence levels. In addition to that, if the person is blinking too many times while asked a question, it indicates stress, and a desire to avoid the truth.
One of the most important features that will allow you to have a fair idea about the skillsets as well as the attitude of the person is by looking at the way they are answering the question. Be observant of the way the candidate is responding. There are people who when asked a question do not answer to the point and others who answer only to the point but avoid getting into the details. Both the scenarios raise a question on the candidate’s honesty.
A good sign of a drooping attitude is a person’s listening skills. A poor listener will also not be able to reciprocate well, and can even be a hindrance in team communication.
Another major lookout while on the selection panel, would be for the HR to check the attitude of the candidate when it comes patience. A not so appropriate candidate is one who is never very ready for multiple rounds of interviews.
Last but not the least is the dress code. A formal interview demands a formal attitude and attire. A person who is not aware of does not adhere to a proper dress code has definitely got the basics of code of conduct, wrong.

Post-Interview Stage

If a candidate agrees to sign-up for the job in the beginning, but later projects family constraints and relocation as a major reason then that’s a major miss on the recruiter’s part, why he or she was not able to figure it out during the interview stage.
In the post-interview stage, if the potential employee is re-negotiating the salary terms, or is extending the joining date, it reflects on the commitment levels of the person.
As HR personnel also notice the names the candidate is giving for reference. If the candidate gives peers as a reference instead of their reporting managers, then that should be taken as a warning sign too.
Last but not the least is in case the candidate fails to clear the background check which can be due to their attitude, a sense of discipline or lack of communication, even then no matter the situation, HR should reject the profile.

Conclusion

Its always the attitude that comes first, skills come next. Selecting people based on their attitude can be a challenge, but the benefit of finding the right fit instead of just a skilled hire is tremendous.

It is therefore always better to let an experienced staffing firm do the job for you, especially when you are looking for the right IT professional.