If I had to guess, I'd say a hiring manager's opinion of a candidate is primarily based on the person's skillset. Does this person have the very narrow set of abilities and knowledge directly applicable to the role I'm offering? Seems logical, right? Well, I'm going to disagree with that. Of course, I'm not saying skill doesn't matter. It certainly does, just not as much as you might think. You see, skills can be taught, a good personality can't. Let's face it, every environment is unique in some way, so you'll be training this person over the first few months regardless. What is much harder to train is drive, ability to learn, and most importantly, social skills. In every interview I ask myself, is this person easy to work with? No matter how skilled someone is, do not hire an individual with a personality you know is going to be difficult to deal with, not unless you intend to lock them in a closet and force them to work in isolation.
Now every team culture is a little bit different, so there's no way I can give you an exact set of criteria. You need to develop a feel for your team's personality, something I will discuss in another post. You can ask the usual behavioral questions, but I won't go over those here. A quick search of the internet will give you a plethora of them to choose from. What I can offer, however, is a few generalities that fit most situations. These are things I look for in an interview.
- Start the interview by smiling. Do they smile back?
- Try to put them at ease right away. Tell them you're just having a conversation and that there are no right or wrong answers. If you can cut through their natural nervousness, you'll get a better read on them.
- Do they give you really long, meandering answers? Remember these people will be interacting with your team all the time, and your team will get tired of them quickly if they can't be at least a little succinct.
- Do they over share? This one is a little harder to evaluate. We want them to open up. Openness is good. But if they start sharing opinions that others could consider controversial or even offensive (even if they don't offend you personally), there's a more than decent chance this could lead to animosity in the team over time.
- Likewise, do you get the impression the person is judgmental or gives off a vibe of being slightly superior? Again, this can cause problems on the team.
- Last but not least, let the past guide you. If you hired people yourself or have seen people hired by others that didn't last long because they didn't fit into the team, identify the relevant characteristics and try not to make that mistake again.
In the course of your career, I promise that you will eventually make a mistake and hire someone who clearly isn't right for your team. That's okay. Learn from the experience. You will get better and better at spotting good and bad fits over time.