Over the past 28 years in executive search and several years as a general manager at a dealership prior, I have found seven components common to all terrific hires. We focus on these components when we are evaluating candidates and I want to share them with you. Hopefully this helps give focus to your searches.

Allow me to ask you to think of your best hires and then your worst hires. Think about these components and see if your best hires had them and if one or more of the components were missing in your worst hires.   

By knowing what you are looking for ahead of time your searches will have more direction and you will have much more confidence in your decision making. Here is an overview of the first three components:

1. Competency: Is candidate a high performer? The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. Winners show themselves early and consistently throughout their careers.

2. Capacity: Do they have a high enough ceiling for new position? A “rock star” sales representative needs an additional skill set to be a sales manager. Often moving from a manager level to a VP level with a company means the candidate will need to go from focusing on tactical thinking to adding strategic thinking to be successful. Are you looking for this in your candidates? 

3. Teammate factor: Are they naturally looking out for the overall good of the company and colleagues or are they the one’s complaining at the water cooler about management, pay, working conditions, etc. It is difficult to have a “bad attitude” and be a good team player. Don’t overlook this component, a technically competent employee who is always stirring the pot is a problem.

For leadership roles and high level single contributor roles add:

4. Drive and initiative: It takes enormous energy to grow and lead a team, department or a company.  Low energy people can be competent but they will not build or grow your company.

5. Motivate others to achieve higher results consistently: You cannot lead if you cannot motivate others. Many midlevel managers are technically competent but lack the ability to energize their staff and drive higher results through them.

6. Vision, judgement and decision making: Are they consistently working on the right problems? Do they get to “root causes” of problems? Are they looking ahead and anticipating future challenges and opportunities?  Do they understand how to both leverage and protect the assets of your company?

7. Resolve: Can they consistently see very challenging projects through conclusion? Sudden changes in business, competitive field, economic factors are very challenging and personally impact team members and can sometimes take years to successfully resolve. Initiating a large project and seeing it through conclusion are 2 different personality traits. Deciding to start a large project is more about initiative. Seeing it to conclusion is more about resolve.

How does this compare to your list?

Donald Jasensky is chief executive officer of Automotive Personnel and can be reached at (216) 226-8190 or don@automotivepersonnel.careers