Companies Hire for Skills, not Attitude

I am more convinced than ever that there are people with good attitudes looking for employment opportunities. I am just as convinced that companies looking for employees consider attitude to be unimportant, simply a phrase on their job application form. If this is not the case, there must be some real flaws in the attitude-screening process.

How much time are companies taking to screen potential employees’ attitudes? My answer has got to be “not enough.” I hope that most applicants are smart enough to answer the “attitude” questions correctly. I also would hope that they have enough sense to provide only references who will say nice things about them. The only way to assess someone’s attitude is to spend some time with him or her, get to know the person. Companies don’t have time for that today; they’d rather hire someone with the right skills, since this can be assessed much more easily. What they are missing is the costs associated with hiring the wrong people, regardless of their skills, and then having to replace them. These companies appear to be doing the same tired dance over and over, looking for the combination of skill and attitude in the wrong order.