What characteristics do you look for in people you hire?

Your company's greatest assets are people, and people can make or break the organization.

There's a saying that leaders should be slow to hire and quick to fire, and I believe this rings true even until today.

When it comes to hiring, here's what I look for in people (in order of priority):

1. Attitude / Willingness to learn
   
2. Skills / Abilities
3. Work Ethic / Team dynamics

Fundamentally, I believe that it is extremely crucial to find people who have a good attitude and are willing to learn.

While hiring for skills are important, people with a poor attitude could bring detrimental impact the culture of the organization over the long term

While skills and attitude can be identified fairly early in the hiring / interview process, work ethic and team dynamics may take longer.

Some people take a longer time to warm up to their teams, while others may exhibit poor work ethic. 

As for characteristics of people, here are some things that I look for when hiring:

• Positive attitude 
  
• Strong work ethic / hardworking
• Curious and solution oriented
• A team player (works well with others)
• Good communication and articulation (effective at expressing themselves)