To hire and select people based solely on attitude and deciding to teach skills later can be problematic. Yet, it occurs every day, often to the detriment of both employer and employee. So is it wrong? I suggested problematic.
“Hire for attitude and then teach skills” is an opinion often expressed. Although not erroneous, it favours personal instinct or intuition over reliable data of a candidate. Proactive efforts to hire for Diversity, Competence, Equity, and Inclusion are then placed lower on the ladder of considerations and significantly impact an organization’s ability to hire diverse and qualified candidates.
As important as attitude is in the hiring process, people can skilfully fabricate it. Deceit can be elaborate. Faking attitude is a craft perfected by people, and many companies have felt the sting of this deceit.
Certainly, sometimes all you need for a specific job is attitude. Yet, you still need to know what attitude means, how it fits in with other behaviours, and have the skill to recognise and determine true attitudinal behaviour.
Attitude is highly important and rightfully so. However, it is not the only driver and causal factor of an applicant’s job success. Attitudinal behaviour is part of and among other factors to be considered, namely;
- Work Ethic
- Integrity
- Reliability
- Thinking style
- Behavioural Traits (Attitude is here) It can be measured scientifically.
- Occupational Interest
You can achieve it scientifically by using an assessment designed to show you job fit. You can even set your own attitude scale you consider needed for a job.
Explore our assessment below to help you. Its total person-job fit and is conducted online and will give you peace of mind before you make a hiring decision. The ProfileXT is the most technologically advanced, state-of-the-art assessment available today for measuring human potential and predicting job performance.
The Profile XT Select
Best,
Marcus van Wyk
