According to the U.S. Department of Labor, over 87 percent of employees fail not because they cannot do the job, but because they will not.
In other words, these employees had attitude problems. Perhaps they couldn’t be counted on to show up on time or they simply refused to do some part of the job they disliked. No matter how their particular attitude problem showed up, they cost their employers plenty in terms of time, money, and grief.
One of the reasons we end up with people who can do but won’t do the job, is because we think it only makes sense to save ourselves time and money by hiring someone with experience. The problem is the time spent gaining that experience may simply have allowed them to become skilled at avoiding their responsibilities.
This is why I’m always saying: “Hire for attitude, train for skills.” It is by far easier to teach a new hire best practice skills and procedures than it is to teach anyone to care about your customers when they just don’t.
So, attitude problems are best discovered before they’re hired. Here are a few interview questions that will quickly separate those who can do, but won’t do, from those who will:
This was originally published in the October 2012 Humetrics Hiring Hints newsletter.
