Beyond Experience: Factors Ensuring New Hire Success 

“Get me someone with this type of experience and education, and our salary range is ….” This is the statement we hear most often when we are asked to fill open positions with companies.

Unfortunately, just because a person has the exact experience and may be performing the exact job at your competition doesn’t guarantee success at your company.

Besides experience, salary, and education, there are some hidden qualifiers that most interviewers don’t consider.

Here are three hidden qualifiers to consider when interviewing candidates to boost employee retention.

1. Emotional Maturity: Navigating Success from Failure – While a person’s achievements are great to talk about, what about talking about a person’s failures? We all know that people make mistakes at work, and how they approach identifying a mistake and solving gives insight into their character and problem-solving abilities.

Simply asking the question: “Tell me about a time you made a mistake at work.”, should open the person up to acknowledge a mistake, how they may have felt about it, and how they solved the problem.

This will reveal their emotional maturity, which is often overlooked in the interview process but can cause serious challenges if their emotional maturity leads them to hide mistakes rather than acknowledge and solve them. 

2. Pace of Work: Matching Rhythms for Success – . Many times, a person joins a company only to feel overwhelmed because the pace of work at the new job is much faster and with more volume than they’re used to.

This mismatch often occurs when a person leaves a large company after 10 or more years and joins a start-up where required duties were handled by other people or departments.

3. Preferred Management Style: Striking a Harmonious Chord –  A major reason people quit jobs is because of the manager. You would think that it’s because the manager has an abrasive or autocratic style, and that is often the case when people leave.

A reason people stay is also because of the manager, and learning what style a person responds favorably to, and then offering that style to that person, will help with employee engagement and reduce turnover.

In conclusion, while experience, education, and salary are important factors to consider when hiring candidates, there are also hidden qualifiers that can predict long-term success in a company. By asking candidates about their past experiences with failure, the pace of work, and their preferred management style, you can gain a deeper understanding of their character and problem-solving abilities. This will help you make informed decisions that will boost employee retention and reduce turnover.