Sure, their skills and experience might align with the position they're applying for, but more often than not it's the new employee's personality and work ethic that ultimately determines how well they'll fit into the organisation.
To find the right people, then, we need to rather think about what type of person we'd like to hire as opposed to simply looking for someone with the right set of skills.
For example, Google uses the following list of sought-after traits in new employees when hiring throughout the organisation:
1. The ability to learn and put together seemingly unrelated pieces of information on the fly
2. A display of potential leadership qualities, such as taking leadership roles within a team when appropriate, and then stepping back to let others lead
3. The ability to take full ownership of one's work and projects
4. The humility to accept when another's idea is better, and, when having taken a strong stand, to be able to change one's mind in the face of new evidence
5. Expertise, which is the least important of the five traits, but necessary for any job nonetheless
What this tells us is that Google has identified 1. critical thinking, 2. leadership, 3. accountability and 4. emotional intelligence as the most important traits for their employees, with 5. expertise or skills, featuring last on the list.
For your company in your industry the list will probably look a bit different as each industry and individual company demands different qualities and traits (such as attention to detail, professionalism etc.) for their employees. What having a list like this does, however, is ensure that your new recruits will fit into the culture that has already been cultivated in your workplace, helping to improve employee morale, efficiency and retention in the long-term.
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