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Interview-Intangible-Qualities-to-Watch-For.md

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Interview-Intangible-Qualities-to-Watch-For.md

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Reminder List For interviewers:

There are a number of intangibles that are also important for your team's, your organization's success.

Listen for indicators of being:

  • Communicative: Can this candidate communicate easily and in ways that may facilitate the corporate dream of 'frictionless' exchange of thoughts and ideas across a diverse collection of individuals? ...this includes being an effective listener. Use caution when analyzing this category for any given candidate for a given role (or for another role that you intend for them in the future) -- as different roles have different communication skill/style needs, which can vary fairly wildly in some technical and research roles. Some individuals have dramatic differences in their written and oral communications skills, so context matters here.
  • Collaborative: Working effectively together in a diverse environment is essential - it is foundational. Ensure that you understand enough about this characteristic before making an offer to anyone. This is especially true in these times.
  • Adaptable: Can this candidate evolve with/for the team?
  • Curious: New options, opportunities, connections, ideas, or new ways to frame old issues, can feed service quality and productivity.
  • Committed: This may be an expression of their motivations, but regardless, half-hearted workers are a drag on any team.
  • Courageous: A willingness to accept risks associated with reasoned action (or inaction) in the context of imperfect information.
  • Enthusiastic: More heart than pressure on this characteristic.
  • Responsible: Delivery matters.
  • Prepared: All candidates need to meet some threshold of being ready for the current and target operational environment. That readiness has many dimensions -- some are listed on this page. Be as explicit as practical about evaluations on this dimension of any given candidate's fit.
  • Mission Conscious: Technology is not the goal. The strategic and tactical goals remain in focus throughout all facets of their work.
  • Self-Improving: Teams require that individuals evolve in ways that improve their collective capabilities. This is not about looking at the latest shiny objects...
  • Tenacious: In the course of normal business operations and evolution, there are a lot of hard problems that require serious, focused concentration and commitment. Candidates need to exhibit the ability to stick with difficult challenges.
  • Competent: Everyone needs to bring a threshold level of readiness. Think about and document what this means for the position at hand.
  • Disciplined: This is a relative of focus. It gets at the candidate's ability to manage, for example, their interests and curiousity in the interest of meeting given goal.
  • Intentional: The macro aspect of this characteristic relates to a candidate's conscious alignment with the organization's needs. At a micro level, it can be exhibited in an effort to make each of their words and actions matter.
  • Positive: Reasoned optimism can be a strong force.
  • Teachable: No candidate arrives as a perfect package. Can they successfully traverse the training required to fill those gaps?
  • Character: This may be a difficult characteristic to tease out, but it is important to tie down.

There are other ways to organize your non-technical evaluation of candidates. You might use the scheme outlined in Bloom's Taxonomy.

And then some more specific characteristics:

You may not agree with all of these, but there are some gems to choose from in this collection.