The team is the core of most businesses, we know it’s ours, so hiring the right people is essential. Our success is directly dependent on the drive, energy, skills and abilities of our team members. Finding the great ones requires a little bit of effort, reaching new heights of recruiting and a reasonable amount of gut feeling.
The most important thing
What we think matters most is the attitude of an individual. You spend a lot of time with a workmate and have to collaborate and work through some difficult issues sometimes. It’s always better to do that with friendly, fun, positive and caring people. Skills are important, but they are not sufficient by themselves. And there are always new skills needed. We put great emphasis on that: the willingness to learn.
What we look at
When we hire we look beyond degrees, grades and qualifications. Sure, they matter and are nice to have, but they are always evaluated in correlation with a broad-ranging experience, the ability to think outside the box and solve problems, innate creativity or a great attitude (yes, here it is again).
One may not have the best degrees, but he or she can be an excellent team player or motivator or might have the abilities that are needed at one point in the growth of the company. One may not have the best qualifications but may be self-taught and better at his or her job than most. Sometimes you need a maverick, someone who can do pretty much anything but there are times when you want someone very specialized, an expert.
Being in line with our values
We care deeply about our core values and we look for them in every new candidate. They are:
- Respect
- Passion
- Frequent and honest communication
We want someone passionate and enthusiastic about the work they engage in, able to respect the other team members and the work we do as company, and willing to communicate with the management and the colleagues in an honest manner in order to prevent and solve any problems that may arise.
The challenge
The trick is finding all this out during the interview. You have a little less than an hour to get to know someone who might be shy, too extrovert or who initially doesn’t seem a good fit but might potentially become a valuable team member through good and hard times alike.
We’re always very open to meeting new candidates. You never know who might be your next star in the company. Sometimes it’s someone you just hired who raised a few doubts in the beginning, other times is a candidate who made an excellent first impression. The key is to always keep searching.
What we’re looking for is a match with our company culture. Someone from outside who can bring fresh ideas, show us what we’ve done badly and suggest improvements or identify the things that we’re doing right and appreciate them, but he or she must be in agreement with the company culture or be able to improve it or consolidate it. That’s one of the reasons hiring more people at once is a challenge and has to be done without haste.
That’s also why we’re patient and offer equal chances to all candidates, always trying to see the big picture. We strive to understand a candidate’s profile and aspirations beyond what’s stated in his/ her resume, as skills alone are not sufficient to make a good candidate a true eJumper.
The attitude makes the difference. So what’s yours?
