Commitment vs Skill: How to choose the best employee
As someone who has been responsible for hiring staff for much of my career, I've learned quite a bit about what makes a great hire. When I hired my first employee way back when, I didn't do what most people normally do. I was working for a medium sized company and was one of three employees in the IT department. I was doing a lot of hands on work and needed to bring in someone to do end user support as I focused more on network, server, strategy, and financial matters. Most of the people I interviewed had the required skills. However, what I was seeing in most of the candidates is that they had been doing the same job for years. It made me think, "Why have they been in the same job for so long? Don't they want to advance in their career?" As I continued to interview candidates, I interviewed a young man with very little experience. But he had something no one else had. I remember him telling me, "I can do anything. I may have to learn it, but I can do anyth...