Tips for Finding Exemplary Employees

Want to hone in on the best possible hires? Depending upon your current (or desired) culture, here are 3 specific talents you could be looking for:

1️⃣ An entrepreneurial mindset — being willing to experiment and try things out, to risk and sometimes fail

2️⃣ Soft skills — Mauro Porcini, chief design officer at PepsiCo, calls these “social gifts” — priceless skills such as the ability to listen and be kind

3️⃣ The ability to turn the above skills into success

It’s that third one that’s hard to scout for. As a recruiter for 25+ years, I have worked with plenty of candidates who had charm and moxie, and excelled in terms of both soft skills and the willingness to take business risks.

However – finding the ones that know how to apply both of these gifts to a successful business is the key. It requires a balance of curiosity and humility, a baseline of realism bolstered with a lot of optimism. Those hires coupled with a management team willing to foster this culture can create a winning team – long term!