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A business is only as good as the team running the show, and as the business owner you need to make sure that that team is the best you can put together. That means knowing what it is that you want in your employees and knowing where to find the right people. Both of those can be very difficult, and you will probably find that it is often a case of trying to ensure that you can work on them if you are keen to find the right people. But one thing you can at least do is try to work out what it is that you are looking for in your employees. If you know what qualities you are hoping your candidates will show, it will make the whole process of hiring people so much easier, so it is definitely worth your while. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the major things you should look for in your prospective employees.

Drive

The last thing you want is a group of people who don’t really care about what they’re doing, and come to work each day with no apparent vigor. What you need from your people is a sense of drive, the feeling that they really want to be there and that they are happy to give it their all and produce great work. The truth is that you can easily determine whether or not someone has drive early on in the recruitment process by the way that they act towards you and towards the whole process as they go along. If they are passionate and committed from the first, then you know that they are the kind of person who is likely to bring that same feeling to your business, and that could benefit your business greatly. Look for that drive whenever you are hiring people, as it is one of the most important things that you can possibly hope to have in your team.

Although there are many other qualities you might also want to look out for, this sense of determination and drive is something that is likely to persist, so it’s a good idea to make this one of the central bases of what you are looking for. If you do that, you are bound to fill your team with the right kind of people, and that will mean good things for your business generally. Drive is literally the driving force that your business needs, and the more people that have it, the better.

Education

There is a good reason that employers will generally want their employees to be well educated. For one thing, it shows that they have the tenacity to see something through to the end: if you know that they have studied for a full degree from the likes of Norwich University, you know that they have the ability and determination to follow a project through to its completion, and that is a very good ability to have in your own team. But being well educated also inspires confidence in their intelligence, a quality which is absolutely always going to be important, especially if the work is likely to be mentally taxing. Put simply, you are always going to want to put educated candidates at the top of your list, compared to those with no or little education.

This is not to say that you should not give those with no education a chance. The level to which a person is educated is often the result largely of where they happened to be born and what kind of upbringing they had, and a truly inclusive employer should make a point to seek candidates of all backgrounds. You might find that someone with no education turns out to be the perfect candidate, and you should certainly keep yourself open to that. But also remember that you should look out for a good education, and when you see it on someone’s CV, you know that it is a pretty good sign.

Interpersonal Skills

The person you hire to work in your team is going to be interacting with you and other people on a daily basis, and you need to be as certain as possible that everyone is going to get along. That does not mean that you should filter people out based on their personalities, but it does mean you should make a point of seeking those people who at least have some basic interpersonal skills which they can bring to the workplace. This is a simple case of ensuring that they are able to speak to people, that they know how to operate in the workplace in a way which benefits everyone, and that they are not overtly rude or aggressive and so on. You can generally determine all of this during the interview stage, and it’s really just a case of watching them closely and using your instincts and common sense to determine whether or not they have these skills. Someone with the proper social skills is likely to be better to work nearby, which is hugely important if you want your team to operate well.

Positive Attitude

Nobody wants there to be a hugely negative force in any team. You will generally want to fill your office with the kind of people who are going to bring a positivity to things, and so that too is something to look out for when you are interviewing candidates. If their presence generally makes you feel positive about your business, then that is a very good person to have around, and you will find that you probably want to hire them, providing that they also tick the other necessary boxes. Whereas, someone who makes you feel down won’t really be a good force to have around, and you are unlikely to want to hire them in the same way.

As long as you are aware of these things, you should know what kind of person you are looking to hire into your team.