When recruiting new talent for your retail organisation, do you primarily base your hiring on a candidate’s ability and past performance or on their attitude and future potential?

I would argue that those who base their decisions on the latter achieve the greatest long-term business results. This article discusses why hiring for attitude is more important than hiring for aptitude.

In other words, base your hiring decisions more on ‘who they are’ than ‘what they know’.

Why is your ability to hire so important anyway? Can’t you just delegate that function?

Apple Inc. founder and CEO Steve Jobs applied his perfectionism in creating leading edge products equally to ‘designing’ the perfect team. In fact, Jobs believed hiring is “the most important job” for a leader.

As a result he was known for never delegating the recruitment function. Why? Because he knew that hiring the best results in improved employee performance and productivity, improved employee engagement and greater employee retention levels.

The result to a retail business when the team works together like a well-oiled machine is improved customer engagement and loyalty, which leads to significantly better bottom-line results.

Our ability as retail leaders to hire and win the war for talent is more important now than ever as we march towards Expo 2020, when an unprecedented influx of millions from all corners of the world are expected to arrive on our shores (many for the promise of an extraordinary retail experience alone).

While five years may seem like a long time and many things can (and no doubt will) change during this time, if leaders don’t prepare for the onslaught now, they will risk being left behind.

Why attitude beats aptitude hands down

It is much easier to train someone with the right attitude than it is to change the attitude of someone who has all the qualifications under the sun but doesn’t fit the culture of your organisation.

If a candidate presents at an interview with great energy, enthusiasm, confidence, humility and curiosity (a desire and proven willingness to learn), they will be more likely to successfully acquire new skills on the job. I am not suggesting that previous experience and educational qualifications aren’t important.

I’m simply saying that new recruits who are hired based on passion and a set of readily transferable skills can become your best employees. Take the case of a candidate who fronts up to an interview with an MBA under their belt versus one without this qualification.

Granted the achievement of an MBA is notable; but at the end of the day it’s what someone does with a qualification that really counts. Furthermore, frequent career transitions are becoming the norm, especially for our next generation of business leaders known as ‘Millennials’.

In fact with Millennials predicted to make up 75 per cent of our working population by 2025, there’s even more reason not to hire someone based on skill set alone.

My top tips for hiring a new recruit

1. Motivation — Look for ambition, drive, humility, proven investment in their own learning. Ask, “What do you do to broaden your thinking?” and (for a management position) “How do you foster learning in your existing organisation?”

2. A team player — Look for signs that the candidate is not in it to satisfy their own ego; instead they are willing to collaborate for the achievement of a common goal. Ask, “How would you invite input from others on the team.”

3. Curiosity — Look for someone who seeks out new experiences and opportunities to learn new things, asks well-considered questions, offers candid feedback and seeks clarification.

4. Insight — The ideal candidate must have the ability to gather and make sense of information (by looking beyond their role and the organisation and towards the horizon to see what’s coming) that may lead to new possibilities for the organisation. Ask, “What steps do you take to seek out the unknown?”

5. Engagement — Look for someone who has the knack of using both emotion and logic to communicate a persuasive vision and connect with people.

6. Determination — The ideal candidate will have what it takes to achieve challenging goals.

7. Resilience — Look for signs that the candidate can handle failure and being asked the tough questions, learn from their mistakes and move on. Ask, “How do you react when someone challenges you?”

In saying all this, make sure you walk the talk. If, as leader of your organisation, you don’t demonstrate a willingness to learn, grow and adapt, how can you expect your people to?

The writer is Executive Director at Thought Leaders Middle East.