INSTANT MBA: Hire For Attitude, Not Skill
Today's advice comes from Alexis Dormandy, founder of the social recommendation sharing startup LoveThis:
"What I usually see is you tend to fire people for attitude and hire people for skills. When you’re hiring people, you always end up looking at the CV and see if this person has the skills you need. But the basic point here is that attitude is the most important thing in a business, and that you should hire for attitude, not just fire for it. You’d probably be firing fewer people if you did."
Dormandy says that it is absolutely critical to hire people who will fit well with your company. Especially at a startup, you need employees who will be on the same page as you about the goals and mission of the business.
Most people fire for attitude, says Dormandy. It's very rare that they would fire for skill. But while skills can be learned and improved, it's a lot more difficult to get someone to adopt a better attitude.
"Hiring more for the can-do attitude and approach gets more done and is more important than the CV. What I learned at Virgin is that if you don’t put attitude at the top of the list, then actually that person tends to get themselves rejected by the system as soon as they’re hired."
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