10/6/2018 Six Characteristics of a Solid Employee

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SIX CHARACTERISTICS OF A
SOLID EMPLOYEE
march 21, 2013 by brian sutter 36 comments

Building your workforce is critical to growth and sustainability. Regardless of technical exp
you can build a brighter business future from the ground up by evaluating prospective emp
on the following six (rockstar) factors.

Building your workforce is critical to growth and sustainability. Regardless of technical expertise, yo
build a brighter business future from the ground up by evaluating prospective employees on the foll
(rockstar) factors.

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Great companies need great people, but they aren’t easy to nd. Failing to nd them can be costly. A
to a survey by Career Builder, two-thirds of the 2,700 employers surveyed had made a bad hire in th
previous year, and 41% estimate that just a single bad hire can cost the company up to $25,000. At th
is a mistake most small businesses can’t afford to make.

Finding the applicants who have the skills, education, and experience to ll the position is key, but to
truly great employees who will become a part of your company and help build it you need to look be
that baseline. You need to nd the traits and skills that aren’t listed on a resume.

FINDING THE INTANGIBLE QUALITIES THAT MAKE

GREAT EMPLOYEES
To nd out if a job candidate has the ability to be a great employee you need to go beyond the resum
the standard interview. It can be dif cult to determine if someone is truly “passionate” or “goal orien

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short interview and often these judgements are subjective, it has to feel right, but being aware of the
characteristics you want and having a sense of how to look for them can be helpful.

RELATED ARTICLE: WAYS TO INCREASE EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

Luckily, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. Many great minds have taken the time to think ab
great interview questions. Laszlo Bock, Google’s SVP of People Operations, recommends using the
Performance Based Interviewing questions developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Below is a list of traits to look for and some questions you can use to try and identify them.

1. PASSIONATE
Good employees who stay at a company are passionate about their work and their company. Finding
in an interview can be tricky. Hopefully, all your interviewees seem passionate about the job (and if t
then that is an immediate red ag), but your job is to separate fake passion from real passion. More
importantly, to nd the people who can use their passion for their work.

Some questions to help determine a person’s passion include:

Give two examples of things you’ve done in previous jobs that demonstrate your willingness to w
hard.
Give an example of a time you defended your organization or a group you belong to. How did yo
about doing it? How did you go about doing it? What was the response of the other party/parti

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2. COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Companies are built by great employees who can work well together. That is built by strong commun
That is just internally, your company’s external success in sales, marketing, PR, and any kind of collab
is also dependent on your employees’ ability to communicate well. This isn’t just expressing ideas co
it also requires the ability to listen to others and respond effectively.

While you will get a general sense of someone’s communication skills from any interview, some spec
questions or tasks to ask include:

 Describe a time when you were able to effectively communicate a dif cult or unpleasant idea t
superior. What made your communication work?
 It can be dif cult to build good relationships at work but sometimes it doesn’t always work. If y
tell about a time when you were not able to build a successful relationship with a dif cult perso
did you handle the situation? How did you accomplish the work?

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 How do you go about explaining a complex technical problem to a person who does not unders
technical jargon? What approach do you take in communicating with people who do not know t
technical jargon?

3. GOAL ORIENTED
To grow your small business you’ve got to have goals. To reach your goals, you need goal-oriented p
employees who don’t get bogged down in the muck of of ce politics or taking credit but are commit
getting the job done and achieving the goal.

Some ways to assess this characteristic:

Describe a time when you worked as a member of a team to accomplish a goal of your organiza
What role did you play? Describe how the team worked together. What was the outcome?
Tell me about the last new procedure you had to learn in your job. Tell me what speci cally was
hardest aspect of learning the new procedure. Tell me speci cally what you liked best about lea
the new procedure. How well is the new procedure working now?
There are times we work without close supervision or support to get the job done. Tell us about
when you found yourself in such a situation and how things turned out.

4. ORGANIZED AND DETAIL FOCUSED

A good communicator who is also a go getter is great, but not if they get lost in the details and can’t
organized. When a small business is trying to grow employees often need to deliver on many fronts
bosses can’t be micromanaging. This requires employees who understand how to organize their task
who focus on the details.

If you want to nd organized, detail focused employees, ask them:

 Put a speci c request in the job description, ask them to state their salary desire or ask them to
organize their resume a speci c way, this way you can see if they pay attention to the details or
are just sending out standard replies.
Developing and using a detailed procedure is often very important in a job. Tell about a time wh
needed to develop and use a detailed procedure to successfully complete a project.
 Describe a situation that required a number of things to be done at the same time. How did you
it? What was the result?
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5. ADAPTABLE
Business is unpredictable and circumstances are constantly changing. The business environment is
evolving and small businesses are hopefully growing and maturing quickly. Good employees need to
to adapt to new situations and grow with your business. You don’t want team members who are stuc
their ways.

Assessing adaptability requires you to see how applicants have adapted before, some questions to tr
include:

Describe a change in your work you have personally had to make in the last couple years. At the
how did you feel about making the change? What did you do to make the change? How do you f
about the change now?
Describe an instance when you had to think on your feet to extricate yourself from a dif cult si
What caused the situation? How did your solution work?
 Describe a time when you were faced with an obstacle to an important project? What did you d
you able to overcome the obstacle? What step(s) did you take?

6. CREATIVE
Companies always need creative team members to help nd new solutions. One of the bene ts of ne
is new ideas, but to make sure you get new ideas you need creative thinkers.

When trying to determine how creative someone can be you can ask them:

Tell me about two suggestions you have made to your supervisor in the past year. How did you
with the ideas? What happened? How do you feel about the way things went?
 Give examples to illustrate how you have generated ideas that represent thinking “outside the b
How were your ideas received by others? What became of the ideas?
Tell me about a time when a co-worker had a good idea and you agreed but no one else was wil
listen. How did you handle the situation and what was the outcome?

If you can nd employees with the traits above you will be on you way to building a strong team and
organization. Keep in mind things like your corporate culture and make sure applicants seem like th

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a good t. Remember, nding great talent is one thing, keeping it is another. So treat great employee
and you will do just ne.

How do you currently search for new employees?

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Six Characteristics of a Solid Employee, 4.0 out of 5 based on 107 ratings

Bio Twitter Facebook Google+ LinkedIn Latest Posts

BRIAN SUTTER
Director of Marketing at Wasp Barcode

Brian Sutter is the Director of Marketing at Wasp, responsible for the development and
execution of the company’s marketing strategy. His role encompasses brand managemen
direct and channel marketing, public relations, advertising, and social media. He also wr
and speaks on topics related to helping small business owners grow their business and i
operational ef ciency.

led under: small business magazine tagged with: adaptability, brian sutter, characteristics of a good employee,
characteristics of good employees, communication, goal orientation, leading change, results driven, small business
time management skills, trustworthy, turnover, work ethic

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http://twitter.com/AngelBiz Angel Biz Advisors

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My advice to business owners is to hire employees based on personal qualities, not skills. You can alw
teach skills to someone who has right attitude, however reverse is not true. The qualities you descri
makes an excellent list. I would also look to see how they are in interacting with customers. If the em
is not able to handle customers well it will start affecting your sales and soon the entire business.

Rating: 4.0/5 (4 votes cast)

waspbarcode
Thank you for your insight!

Rating: 4.0/5 (1 vote cast)

http://www.facebook.com/myrna.padilla.52 Myrna Padilla

Yes true Angel Biz advisors. Especially the nature of business I am in, I always look rst the attitude
employee parallel to their skills set that we required. When I interview.., I always asked if the positio
are applying for part of their passion. Developing trust relationship with our employees is the best.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

jessirj
Great insight – thanks for your comment.

Rating: 3.0/5 (1 vote cast)

http://www.facebook.com/myrna.padilla.52 Myrna Padilla

Very true. I agree with the article “six characteristics of a solid employee”. I enjoy reading it.

Rating: 3.0/5 (2 votes cast)

jessirj
Thanks Myrna!

Rating: 2.3/5 (3 votes cast)

alka
i always thought the most important thing employers look for in people is their technical knowledge
and rest is secondary

Rating: 1.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Atiq
alright, but does any employer look for these properties in candidates or the speci c skills required
speci c job the employer is offering. I guess these traits are only in the best interest of the employee
and that most of the employers are concerned only with the job speci c skills when they evaluate a
candidate.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

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