Top 5 Key Traits Employers Seek in Prospective New Hires

Certain traits make you successful in a job. These are the traits employers value the most.

In our previous installment of this series on job success, I shared exclusive insights on the 6 biggest job application mistakes you must avoid at all costs. A gentleman reached out to ask if I could write a follow-up piece on what employers look for when hiring. And I'm happy to oblige.

I have had the pleasure of participating in numerous recruitment exercises both through hiring for SFAN and engagement with institutions like President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) West Africa (as a consultant responsible for assessing and interviewing applicants from 9 YALI West African countries including training a team of local and international assessors and interviewers).

Regardless of size, industry, or legal structure, the five traits below are distinguishing traits many employers look for in a prospective new hire.

1. Smartness: Clever, witty, or readily effective attitude

Whenever we sit down with a client for a briefing or plan my internal recruitment initiatives, this is one of the traits that comes up again and again. The reason is simple. Every employer wants a team member who can get the job done.

It’s no longer enough to focus on the job description. You need experience and mastery of other transferable skills like social media, strategic communication, email writing, etc. Your ability to demonstrate both job-specific competence and cross-functional leadership and social skills will set you apart from others.

2. Passion: Strong and barely controllable desire to excel

The business world is getting increasingly fierce in competition, thanks to technology and shifts in politics. A passion for your work helps you maintain the level of focus and commitment required to survive and thrive. Consequently, recruiting managers are keen to find candidates who can progressively demonstrate dedication and commitment to their job.

When someone cares about the job, he or she can go the extra mile in delivering above and beyond expected results -- not just doing the barest minimum that earns him/her a paycheck. A candidate with passion adds great value to the company. And, it is easy to tell whether a person is passionate or not. One meeting or interview with a candidate is enough to tell you whether he or she is passionate.

I have seen that candidates who approach an interview with enthusiasm, always have concrete goals for their career. They have a self-development plan and can articulate their thoughts effortlessly. These candidates usually perform well on the job. As any recruiter will tell you, self-motivated candidates are like flickers of light; they help others find direction.

3. Kindness: The quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate

We live in a world where everyone does not have the same starting point. Therefore, you must be compassionate and considerate in how you treat yourself and other people.

We have all heard of the power of "little acts of kindness." A prominent example is the incident involving two professional athletes at the August 2016 Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro. Nikki Hamblin and Abbey D’Agostino were four laps from finishing the 5000m race when they tripped and fell. The American athlete, Abbey D’Agostino got up first but instead of continuing running, she pulled up her opponent and said, “Get up, we have to finish this!”

Unfortunately, shortly after that, her knee gave out. She had injured her right leg in the fall. D’Agostino was on all fours on the Olympic track, her face writ in pain.

Realizing what had happened, Hamblin stopped running and reached back for D’Agostino. The pair continued to run side-by-side in the bottom spot until they finished the race to loud applause and cheers from onlookers. These women have never met each other before.

Although this might be an exceptional case, we encounter issues and situations in the workplace every day that one may be tempted to look the other way. However, one act of compassion may be all you need to make a lasting difference. And, it starts with being gentle to yourself. If you are not kind to yourself, you cannot be kind to anyone else.

4. Hustle: Grit, a trait of perseverance

Angela Duckworth is an American psychologist and researcher. As part of her work, she spent years researching traits that make a person successful or not. From Westpoint Military Academy to the National Spelling Bee to Private Sales Enterprises to Hollywood, one significant characteristic she learned as a distinguishing factor for success is a simple word, grit. 

Grit, as she defines it, is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals; stamina, ability to stick with your future day-in-day-out, and working hard to make that a reality. Grit is living life like a marathon, not a sprint. 

Our era of Instagramification and Instagratification has led many to believe that success (in jobs and life) can be automated like social media posts and grocery orders. But then you study highly successful people and you realize that to be successful at anything you do requires a mind-blowing work ethic. It requires persistence...for a long period.

Candidates that demonstrate the ability to hustle and reach for their goals will always outshine others who want things to happen on autopilot.

Research has proven that talent alone does not make a person great. The world is filled with talented failures. But there's hope for everyone. Anyone can learn to succeed. Carol Dweck, the Mindset expert, in her book “Growth Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" says that the ability to learn is not fixed, it can be learned. In other words, failure is not a permanent condition, it can change with effort. 

5. Integrity: The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles

Being dependable and trustworthy is one of the most vital traits in the workplace. It fosters a great work environment. No one wants to deal with someone or a company that says one thing but goes on to do an entirely different thing. We all want someone who can follow through, take responsibility for their actions, and execute on commitments.

Strive Masiyiwa is the billionaire founder of Econet Wireless. His teachings are filled with stories taken from his own experience in which he steadfastly refused to compromise his principles. Masiyiwa says that integrity is one of the major reasons for his success in life and business. “In my 30 years running a business (remember I started in 1986),” he wrote,” I’ve met and known some highly gifted entrepreneurs who looked ready to set the whole world ablaze, but after a few years, some of them failed spectacularly. Whenever I looked back on what had happened… more often than not, it was an issue of integrity.”

No matter how much success a person accumulates by compromising or cheating, it will eventually fizzle away. Every culture and belief shows there are no shortcuts to success. It may be painful to maintain your honest stance but in the long run, it will pay off.

In the words of Brian Tracy, self-development trainer and coach, “There should be no exceptions to honesty and integrity. Integrity is a state of mind and is not situational. If you compromise your integrity in small situations with little consequence, then it becomes very easy to compromise in the big situations.”

Final Thoughts

Today's workforce is dynamic in every regard. Technology is reshaping how we work and where we work. Employers are grappling with the overwhelming transformation from Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. Everything is changing -- the things in vogue yesterday have become obsolete today.

But you know what isn't going away? The five traits we've discussed in this article. Smartness, passion, kindness, hustle, and integrity, these traits will forever be in high demand in the workplace. Develop them and you'd have done yourself a good service!

At ReadyforWork digital career accelerator, we help rising professional take ownership with skills development policies linked to labor market demand. Learn more about the upcoming ReadyforWork cohort.