Kevin Downey

Interviewing and hiring someone is a huge responsibility. You not only need to find someone with the right skills and qualifications but someone who will get along with everyone else on the team and will be able to represent the company and its core values. That hire needs to be diligent and trustworthy while following the standards and processes everyone else adheres to. They need to perform with consistency, be emotionally intelligent, and be respectful of the needs and concerns of the others on the team. They need to seek out proactively a deeper understanding of the nature of the company and their teammates. That’s a tall order to determine when interviewing anyone. But it’s all part of the recruiter’s job.

If the team doesn’t get along with that hire, or that hire introduces an unwelcome attitude to the workplace. One person’s consistent attendance issues can impact the job satisfaction of everyone else on the team, lower productivity, and negatively impact the performance of the company as a whole on either a micro or macro scale. So when an interviewer decides to hire any person, they are putting their reputation on the line.

Looking for the perfect hire requires strong attention to detail. So there were a variety of things I would look for. I’d examine their cover letter, resume, or application for inconsistencies, from formatting to punctuation. I would scrutinize the consistency of their answers from one question to the next. But, I would first and foremost evaluate why they wanted to work for us. If they were playing the numbers game trying to find a job anywhere, it was pretty evident.

But, it was those applicants who seemed to have an inside view, or inherent understanding, of the real qualifications of the job that I’d put at the top of the pile. They understood the job expectations and the culture and already seemed like they were one of the team. So much of this comes through in one simple thing: their enthusiasm. They had an energy that fit right in. This is something that can rarely be faked.

If you invest the time to gain a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what life is like working somewhere, and when the more you learn, the more you get emotionally invested in that opportunity, the better your chances will be for winning that job. For the interviewer, when it comes to identifying how consistent a candidate’s work performance would be, the truest test is determining how well they understand the job and how enthusiastic they are to work there, even after everything they learned. That alone suggests they’ll consistently do whatever it takes to win the job and, once hired, go the extra mile for the team.

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