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What are Employers looking for in Candidates with any Role?
I’ve been doing a lot of candidate interview preparation recently. I thought I’d post out what I believe based on my own recruiting experience to be the “Holy Trinity” for candidates to consider in going for a particular role with a particular company. These are the 3 things hiring & HR managers look for in all candidates irrespective of the role. If your matching score is high in all three then your chances of landing the role are increased.
- Attitude / Motivational fit
- Skills / Technical fit
- Cultural fit
Attitude or Motivational fit is arguably the most important because it is the most difficult for a candidate to change. Enthusiam and a positive can do mind set are obviously important. Equally the best way you can fully demonstrate attitude / motivational fit to an employer is with real world examples . Can you show a track record of “continuous learning & growth” through formal education / certifications / personal projects. Can you demonstrate resilience at work by sharing examples of key times when you were really challenged or faced adversity in the workplace. Situations which you managed to overcome through your own actions e.g. turning a failing project around, meeting an impossible deadline, managing a very difficult stakeholder, influencing decision makers with their set opinions by showing them real data. A final point here is to be able to align your future career goals with the company’s overall mission / direction as this will demonstrate your long term commitment to the hiring manager. Research the company to understand it’s values / goals / strategy and then figure how you can genuinely help them get there.
The skills and technical fit may seem obvious. Do you have the necessary skills & experience for the role, do you have the necessary tools / technologies used by the company, have you specific sector/domain experience. This assessment can be done by reviewing the Job Description and by talking to your recruiter. The key though is can you demonstrate them – “telling is only selling when it’s a real life example story” . Have you real life examples or projects from your previous roles which you can talk through which clearly show you have the skills / technical fit for the role. If there are gaps in your skills are you willing to learn and adapt or more importantly can the prospective employer afford to wait until you address the gaps? In talking through your skills you may find the CAR approach useful. C = Challenge – big picture what was the problem / situation / context . A = Action what did ‘you’ personally do to address the challenge . R = Result what was the outcome from your actions. You can add an L = learning to your story – what did you learn from the situation that your prospective employer can benefit from.
Cultural fit is less obvious and perhaps more difficult to assess. You need to try to find out the company’s key values ( innovation vs social responsibility vs making profit etc) , what is their working style (team vs automous / dynamic vs slow paced), how does the company communicate (open vs formal), worklife balance (full time in office vs remote vs hybrid / flexibile hours vs out of hours), is the company rapidly changing or is it a stable environment more concerned with BAU. Ultimately if the cultural fit is right – you will likely experience more job satisfaction and therefore stay longer, be more productive as you will be more engaged and less likely to experience conflict.
Be authentic and honest in assessing & then demonstrating all 3 above otherwise you might have to look for another role sooner than you would like. Interview preparation & research are key for success and your recruiter will help you with these. All three are assessed either directly in different style of interviews (technical vs situational vs competency), by simple observation or through specific tests set. If the company needs someone to hit the ground running then they might place a higher tariff on your technical skills – this is certainly almost always true for contract roles . In my experience though for permanent roles Cultural fit and Attitude are key as you can always train for Skills .
Hope you found this short post useful ?
If you are you are an IT / Finance candidate looking for a new role please get in touch for a confidential discussion at derek@buabua.ie or 087 661 3711 .
Beir Bua
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