How to Hire Employees for Potential, Not Just Past Experience

By Don Shapiro

Sarah, a hiring manager for a growing software company, stared at the job applicant’s resume after the interview. On paper, everything looked perfect. The candidate had answered every question and sounded good. Sarah had been down this road before, selecting candidates with the best job history and backed by solid interviews.

However, even though the candidates she had selected in the past had all been capable of doing the job, many of them did not work out. Sarah reflected on a couple of the other candidates in this hiring round whose backgrounds weren’t as good, and something gnawed at her. It seemed that just finding a candidate with a perfect past wasn’t the answer. What was she missing?

In today’s tight labor market, it takes a lot of time and effort to hire an applicant. This makes hiring the right person more important than ever. A study by Leadership IQ found that 46% of new hires will fail in less than 18 months. That ups the stakes on hiring the right person, considering how much a wrong hire can cost a company.

Whether you’re an executive, manager, or owner, your success depends on how well you hire. It’s the people you hire who produce results. Yet, even if you’ve been through training or mentoring on how to hire, you usually end up doing the same types of things. And most of them focus on evaluating a job candidate’s past.

"Plug and play" hiring

You might call this "plug and play" hiring. The focus is on a candidate's job history. You want them to have held similar jobs in your industry. There should be a steady upward progression in their job responsibilities. You don’t want any gaps in employment, though one gap out of an otherwise excellent job history is okay.

The interview usually focuses on their experiences in their jobs, what they have accomplished, and what they’re looking for in a new job. You want to find someone ready to do the work on day one: plug and play.

Yet, you’ve probably experienced the same thing Sarah is going through. Your new hires don’t all work out. Actually, you’re surprised that some of them fall short of your expectations.

That’s what Sarah realized. She had been trying to plug the perfect applicant into the job. In theory, it made sense. If they didn’t need much of her time for training, she would have more time to do other things.

However, since Sarah has had to replace more hires than she wanted, she's ended up spending more time conducting interviews and reviewing resumes. Plug and play hiring didn’t save her any time or help her accomplish more.

Like too many people in management, she has been hiring people based on their past. All these reflections led Sarah on a journey to learn how to hire right the first time.

A leader will focus on an applicant's potential

As Sarah started to focus more on a job candidate’s potential and how she could develop it, this is the moment she started becoming a better leader. When a manager becomes a leader, it changes how they hire, and changes their relationship with the people who work for them. It also helps them to produce better results, achieve difficult goals, and exceed expectations.

At the core of being a leader, there is a desire to develop a person's potential. Business leaders want to see their employees grow and succeed. And this is why leaders look to hire people who have a potential which they know they can develop. They prefer this type of job candidate over the plug and play model.

When we put more of our focus on an applicant’s potential, an amazing thing occurs. We start hiring different people, and many of those people end up sticking around longer and doing a great job.

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• Tips for Interviewing Potential Employees
• Holiday Hiring During These Uncertain Times: Guidelines for Business Owners
• 10 Remote Employee Onboarding Tips to Help New Hires Succeed

How to assess the potential of your next hire

When you are hiring, what qualities should you look for in a job applicant as you assess their potential? According to the Leadership IQ study, 89% of employee failures were not due to lack of skills or knowledge, but were due to the employee's inability to accept feedback, lack of emotional intelligence, lack of motivation, personality issues, and poor fit with the company culture.

These qualities can’t be learned through training, school, or experience. They are about who the applicant is on the inside. What makes them tick? What is there "why"?

Hire for potential: Key interview questions to ask

You might not find all of these qualities in an applicant, so there is some judgment involved here. But the fewer of these "potentials" that they have, the stronger the likelihood the applicant won’t last as an employee. When you find an individual with these seven qualities, you’ve eliminated 89% of the reason employees don’t work out.

1. Wants to learn and grow to become more than they are today

An applicant displaying a willingness and desire to learn goes a long way toward turning a new hire into a productive long-term employee.

Interview questions:

• What would you like to learn more about that would help you in your career?
• Do you do anything outside of work to advance your skills and knowledge?

2. Can accept feedback and coaching

While applicants will tell you what tasks they did in their last job and what they accomplished, they usually don’t bring up how they handled feedback and coaching.

Interview questions:

• What is the best feedback you have ever received from a boss and how did you utilize that feedback?
• How do you feel when a boss offers you suggestions on how you can do a better job?
• What's the best advice you've ever received from your boss?

3. Motivated to produce results and wants to prove what they can do

Look for applicants who have something to prove. These individuals often will excel at their job to show what they can do.

Interview questions:

• If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
• How do you view your entire career path and how would you like to change it in the future?

4. Is open to change and enjoys new experiences

Business success is all about change, and that’s even more true in smaller businesses. You want to hire people who can and are willing to change when business challenges make it necessary.

Interview questions:

• Did you ever experience a major change at a place you previously worked and how did it affect your job?
• Do you like to do new things or does change make you anxious and uncomfortable?
• Do you look for ways to improve your job?

5. Has good emotional intelligence and is a team player

You want employees who work well with other employees. That means they need to have some level of empathy and understanding where others are coming from, as well as respect individual differences. They also should be willing to help their coworkers and not blame others when negative things happen.

Interview questions:

• Share a situation where there was a conflict between you and others at work. What happened?
• How did the conflict get resolved?
• How could the conflict have been prevented?

6. Fits in with the company culture, social dynamics, and the way things are done

Every company has its own culture, which is a form of peer pressure, where there is common knowledge between employees about the way things are done and how people deal with each other. Many companies don’t pay attention to culture, and some companies intentionally shape their culture so that the focus is on what will help the business perform better. Know what type of culture your firm has and ask yourself if an applicant would fit in or not.

Interview questions:

• Please describe any peer pressure you may have experienced in past jobs and how it felt.

7. Is a problem-solver who is motivated to find a way to make things work

At some point, every job will encounter a problem. These problems can hurt service, quality, productivity, and more. You want to hire employees who can find ways to overcome and solve problems.

Interview questions:

• Describe a problem to the applicant and follow up with questions on how they would handle it.
• Who would you involve to help you?
• How do you feel when something occurs that prevents you from doing the best job possible?

Final key to successful hiring

Managers hire the past. Leaders hire potential.

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