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Hiring for Rockstar Status? 6 Qualities to Look For

Staffing a growing company, or even just to keep pace with people who move on for one reason or another, can feel like running on a neverending treadmill. It’s especially difficult when — as is your right — you have very high standards.

This is true no matter what industry your business operates in or what role you hope to fill. Whether you’re looking to add a top finance professional to your team, retain a seasoned executive to turn a stagnant organization around, or add depth with a subject matter expert (or three), you absolutely must aim high.

But rockstar employees are few and far between. To spot them in your candidate pool, look for these six qualities.

1. An Openness to Doing Things Differently

Exceptional employees are flexible, malleable, plastic — choose your adjective. They are willing and indeed eager to do things differently than they personally have in the past, and certainly more than their peers and competitors have too. Of all the clutch soft skills you should look for in future employees, this is among the most important.

2. A Willingness to Go the Extra Mile

This is another crucial soft skill that far too few candidates exhibit. It’s not the same as a willingness to work with abandon beyond all reasonable limits, to be clear, but it does demonstrate a singular work ethic over and above what typical employees possess. To elicit it, ask candidates to describe situations where they worked on tight deadlines or under some other sort of pressure to reach (and, ideally, exceed) their objectives.

3. A Tendency to Get Along With Others (Unless the Role Specifies Otherwise)

Only a select few roles demand personalities that cut against the grain. Think internal investigators, efficiency analysts, and others whose work product does not rely on or benefit from — or even improves in the absence of — collaboration. For everyone else, the ability to get along with others is a vital skill, and one that absolutely must be elucidated during the recruiting process.

4. High Praise From Former Supervisors

Employer references should not be the sole factor, or even the top five most influential factors, on which you base your hiring decisions. But this is an instance where differences in degree really do matter — in particular, the difference between a “warm” reference and an absolutely glowing one. The latter is where you’ll find your next rockstar.

5. An Introspective Personality

High performers tend to be confident without being cocky. After a setback (and, for that matter, a success), they look within themselves and ask how they might improve the next time around. This is another quality that’s not too difficult to draw out during the interview process with the right questions. 

6. A Keen Understanding of Their Specialty

Last but certainly not least, high performers demonstrate a deep, fluent understanding of their professional speciality and its role within the organization and industry. This understanding goes beyond the usual talking points to demonstrate that, yes, this person “gets it” and — with support and encouragement — could one day lead their team, their division, and perhaps their entire organization.

Your Next Rockstar Awaits

Identifying rockstars among just-okay candidates is difficult enough. Wooing them onto your team is a heavier lift — one that can take more time and perhaps more persuasion (financial and otherwise) than you anticipated.

Is it worth the effort? Absolutely. Once you’ve hired for a few key positions, you’ll surely appreciate how difficult it is to acquire talent. Not unrelatedly, you’ll find yourself very motivated to keep each new rockstar hire on your team for the long haul.

But let’s focus on one thing at a time. Right now, your job is to find and hire your next rockstar. And that will be easier if you can take these six lessons to heart.