Little Things That Matter When Hiring Talent
By: Tessi Fathia Adam, Head of Commercial. (Originally posted here and here. This article has been edited for clarity.)
People are one of the most crucial parts when building a company. “Great people build a great business,” they said. At Circles.Life, this conviction rings true.
As one of the pioneer team members with Circles.Life Indonesia, I had the privilege to build my own team from scratch for our commercial and marketing functions. They soon became my family during the work week!
During my last interview session with a potential candidate, he asked: “What is your key consideration when hiring someone? What is your ‘a-ha’ moment that makes you decide someone is the one you’re looking for?”
The first thing that popped up in my head was: ‘Well, yang penting nyambung sih ngobrolnya.’(As long as I can click with the person, the opportunity will arise.)
Doh — super strategic and thoughtful answer, right?
It got me thinking: what key attitude — a reflection of the candidate’s behavior — am I looking for when hiring someone?
I believe the main consideration when hiring people is not only about expertise and work experiences. Skill and expertise can be trained, but not with attitude. It’s hard to be changed, it has to be established innately.
I started recounting most of my interview experiences, and remember which exact moment made me go, “SKIP. Next candidate.” and which conversations piqued my interest.
4 key attitudes I consider in a candidate:
1. A fighter
A fighter here means the person continuously tries to achieve the goal, despite challenges and barriers. They can think creatively to find a solution, and are willing to get their hands dirty at all costs.
I want to specifically highlight the last part: get their hands dirty.
Some employees avoid doing other stuff beyond their official job description. They don’t really care if there’s an issue in the company and think it’s not their job to solve it. They would rather let other people take care of it!
This may even apply to managers. Some people want to be a manager so they can wash their hands off of work and delegate the task to their team instead. The worst part is they blame their subordinate if a problem occurs — the so-called the “messenger-manager”.
I always look for someone who can take high ownership: someone who is willing to jump to the ground (or even lowest basement) when needed; knowing the right time to zoom in and zoom out; contribute and help others to solve issues, despite their working-level, despite their main job-role.
2. A collaborator
There’s no such thing as a single winner in a company. A victory only can happen from collaborative work that involves so many team members working hand-in-hand to make it happen.
Look for a good team player, not a lone wolf. A person who leads or initiates a successful project, and but is completely aware that it’s a collaborative effort. There’s no way someone can be successful without others’ help.
3. Celebrates success and learns from failure
In Circles.Life, we embrace failure.
We force people to be brave— it’s ok to try many things and it’s really ok fail. The only rule: Learn from your failure, do not repeat it again in the future.
I did fail in some projects during my tenure here, but wasn’t singled out or blamed. Instead, the founders and leaders just asked: “How can we fix this?” and “What did we learn from this?”
Yep, proud to say that this place has the most supportive environment I have ever been in.
One key question I ask during interviews is: “Ok, so you have told me about a successful project. Now tell me about something that failed: what did you learn from it?”
I believe we have made so many mistakes in our work (yet more in our personal lives, I assume). Most of us prefer to hide it, only showing the successful version of ourselves.
By admitting that you have experiences in failed projects — and more importantly— you learned from it, you demonstrate that you are a genuine risk-taker who is also responsible for anything that goes wrong.
4. Loves healthy debate and healthy conflict
I’m an extreme ISFJ-T*.
A win-win solution is my bread and butter. Being supportive is my daily goal. Yet, I somehow have a tendency to avoid conflict, thinking that it’s better to be quiet and back off rather than start a fight.
I admit, it’s my weakness, and I’m constantly trying to fix this.
One way I can improve myself is by surrounding myself with people who love conflict — healthy conflict.
These are people who speak their mind freely, offer constructive feedback and even kickstart friendly debates if necessary.
Being around them is a trigger for me to do the same —to love and get used to healthy debate means we are constantly thinking of how we can deliver the best product and services to our customer.
Those are key elements of a person I look out when crafting and building my family at work. I believe there are a lot of other attitudes that also matter when hiring someone. Do share yours here as well!
*Editor’s note: This is one of 16 main personality types measured by the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator.
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