Interviews are a place where you can showcase yourself and your personality. While everyone is different and unique, there are some qualities that you should have because it makes you a valuable team member and a great hire. The traits below are essential to having success in work teams, and you should aspire to have these traits in you as well.
Emotional Intelligence
People with high EQs can control their emotions well, along with the emotions of others. Research also says that they are great at getting people to do what they want. Candidates with high EQs are hired because they know how to navigate themselves in social situations and to get things done. They understand how people work and thus will be good at engaging others and working well with others.
Positive Attitude
A lot of things can be taught to a new hire, but attitude isn’t one of them. If you always have a negative attitude, it is really hard to change that, plus it is never fun working with someone who is down all the time. Having a positive attitude will make you someone who is enjoyable to work with, plus your positivity can help motivate others as well. Furthermore, you can bring fun into the workplace and make the work not so boring and mundane.
Initiative
Initiative can be measured from the very first interview. Did you bother to do your research? Did you manage to learn about the company that you’re applying for? Do you know anything about your interviewer? People who are proactive – not reactive – always make for better hires. Companies like looking for people with initiative because they will act on their own to solve a problem, or come up with solutions to things that no one has noticed before.
Good Reasoning
Some people will just do their job or a task at hand without thinking much about it. Colin Shaw, CEO at Beyond Philosophy, asks his candidates to come up with a 100-day plan, which is a plan of what they will do during their first 100 days on the new job. Some come in unprepared and just try to luck their way through, whilst others put clear thought and spend lots of time planning their days and deliver a professional presentation. Which candidate do you think will be hired?
Independent Working Skills
When we’re all grown up and working, no one is around to babysit us like in the classroom where our teachers make sure that we do our homework. There needs to be a certain amount of trust that an employee will be in the office and doing his job for the day. Some people do well with the freedom, others do not. If your boss is not going to be in the office all the time, or not close to the desk, you have to have the responsibility and independence to make sure that you get your work done and to deliver what you need to deliver.
What skills do you think make for a better hire? Do you agree with the skills in the list? What other skills are good for teams? What about the top undesirable skills? What hire do you regret the most? I would be interested to read about your answers in the comments below.