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How Do You Hire Character?

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it hiring

The previous article emphasized the importance of loyalty, honesty, humility and friendliness over technical skills and certifications.  The point was not that the skills aren’t important or even essential for the position, but that the skills without the character is a recipe for future trouble, regardless of how impressive the credentials.  A skill can be learned; character is more foundational than that.

So how do you find out whether a candidate has good character?  After all, their resume contains accomplishments, skills and work experience, not anecdotes about how they responded to a situation where they were asked to compromise an ethical standard.

Ask Them

The questions you ask and the way that you ask them can determine whether you learn the truly important things about the job candidate.  It’s important that you’ve figured out ahead of time what character traits that you are looking for so that you can ask questions that will help reveal them.  Here are a few examples:

  • What can you tell me about your prior or current employer?  (If they speak negatively of a prior employer, they will probably speak negatively about you.)
  • What are some of the character traits that you’ve learned from your prior life or work experience that you feel would be important for this position?  (Ask for examples)
  • What qualities do you most admire in others with whom you’ve worked?
  • How did you respond when you were you ever asked or pressured to do something which you didn’t feel was ethical?  Looking back, would you have done anything differently?
  • Can you describe some of the things that you’ve learned about dealing with a belligerent customer?  A co-worker? (Ask for examples)
  • When you’ve become aware that a co-worker is doing something dishonest, how have you dealt with the situation?

Listen

I’ve sat in interviews when the interviewer did more talking than the candidate, and when they did ask questions, asked them in such a way that it was obvious what answer they were looking for.  One reason for that may be that listening takes longer.  Allowing the candidate to respond to a more open-ended question may require you to pay better attention and sift through some extraneous information, but it’s also a sure way to learn things about the candidate that you wouldn’t otherwise.

Ask Their References

References provided by a candidate are going to be favorable toward the candidate (well, they’d better be, or you’d have to question the candidate’s judgment), but one way to distinguish platitudes from reality is to ask for specific examples.  You’re not trying to put the person on the spot, so it’s helpful to respond to a positive comment with, “That’s great to hear.  Are there any specific examples that you could share with me?”  Remember, you’re not looking for negative statements, just reinforcement of positive ones.  If there are negative statements made, do not press for details. 

What about Technical Skills?

Keep in mind that these questions are all centered on discerning a person’s character traits.  If you don’t consider yourself tech-savvy, you may feel comfortable asking questions about character but feel intimidated asking about a person’s technical abilities.  (By the way, one of an IT person’s essential qualities should be an ability to explain technical concepts in layman terms.) In a future article I’ll discuss tips on determining technical qualifications.