How to hire winners

The driving force of a brand is not capital, or marketing, or sales, but people.

That’s right, as a business owner myself, I believe that our employees are the most important aspect of our company because they run our operations.

You see, seldom are we able to run every aspect of our business on our own.

Business owners that do that generally either fail miserably in their business or become severely burnt out before achieving success because their focus and energy are stretched too thinly to be effective.

Now, considering that staff is so important, we quite obviously cannot just hire anyone. Rather, we need to hire winners.

To put it simply, a winner is someone who will bring value to your company.

Of course, finding one is much easier said than done, considering that many candidates have a fair amount of polish that makes it hard to discern their claims from the truth.

Fret not. After years of running my own business and helping other business owners find their own winners, here are four great traits I have noticed that will help you identify the winners in your midst.

Hunger

There are people who want a job, and then there are those that want success. Having the hunger to succeed, especially for the sake of personal fulfilment and corporate glory, is usually a very good sign that you have a winner.

This is because their ego and sense of self-worth are usually tied directly to how much success they can achieve for the company.

With their pride at stake, people with a hunger for success tend to be far more meticulous, driven and determined to help your company gain success.

The trick is how to identify those with this hunger, because quite frankly, anyone can claim that they have it.

The secret is to ask the candidate about their track record, and professional and personal breakthroughs over the last two to five years as well as significant future milestones they hope to reach.

Those that can clearly list out a string of significant achievements are usually the ones with a hunger for success because they have pre-determined their personal key-performance indexes and are likely to have the drive you are seeking in a winner.

Willing to go the extra mile

There is a multitude of people who believe that they should only work within specific parameters for some reason or rather.

While this provides a certain degree of focus and specialisation, this style of segmented work is only viable in a multinational corporation with many employees.

Conversely, if you run a small enterprise, then you’d probably understand that in order to keep costs low, there is a need for staff who can multi-task across several roles.

This kind of worker usually exhibits a strong desire to immerse themselves in all tasks and learn skills beyond their job scope and are winners worth hiring because they are willing to do more for your company without being forced.

Team player

In business, the functionality of your team is the most important element in building success.

As such, team players are winners worth hiring because they can enhance your team dynamics and galvanise their colleagues towards striving for greater success.

To identify a team player, one of the easiest ways is to ask the rest of your employees to evaluate potential candidates in terms of how they feel these future co-workers will fit in and perform as part of the team.

The trick is to have them interview the candidates as a group. This will provide you with a clearer picture about how these potential candidates will work in a team setting.

Accountability

Plain and simple, people who are accountable are keepers. Why? Well, that’s because these people take pride in their tasks and will always push towards improving and fine-tuning their operational skills and task management.

These are the ones who are willing to both take ownership of their tasks and accept the responsibility if they make a serious mistake.

Unfortunately, identifying this type of winner can only be done effectively when they begin working.

However, this aspect is as much a personality trait as it is a work ethic.

As such, some key indicators of people who have this can be deduced in your screening process by determining if they will blame circumstance or other people entirely for failures.

In this respect, after asking them to explain themselves over a hypothetical failure, a good sign is when they expound the circumstantial situation, but still readily admit that they could have done more to prevent it and attempt to find a solution.

In any case, after years of helping hundreds of business owners and corporations, I believe that good employees can be found if we know what to look for.

With these tips, hopefully you will be able identify the clear signs of a winner that is truly worth hiring.

However, it is important to remember that business owners like us must not just be vigilant for winners amongst new staff, but also be willing to identify or even nurture the winners amongst our current employees. Till then, stay sharp on all fronts, and happy hunting!

> Pam Siow is the founder of ThinkSpace. A respected business coach within the region, she helps hundreds of business owners and corporations gain success and profits with her knowledge and real-world experience. Find out more at ThinkSpace.com.my now.