Thanks to everyone who participated in our survey (link to survey results in 1st comment).

Here is a reminder of the CEO’s interview practice:
"I've been a CEO for over 2 years and I've finally cracked the code on hiring.
I look for just 3 things:
• Character
• Attitude
• Reliability
Anything else can be trained."

And here is our take on it…
We respectfully disagree with the CEO for 2 reasons:
1. Too broad definitions - what are “character” and “attitude” exactly? what do they contain? Imagine telling your recruiters or hiring managers to hire for great character and a positive attitude- you can be 100% sure that each of them will interpret this differently. In order to hire with accuracy we need to clearly define what are we looking for in terms of traits, behaviors, values and motivation. Broad definitions will just lead to people making their on subjective judgments and biases.

2. You should definitely hire for skills — although skills can be taught, some, particularly human skills (also known as “soft skills”) such as effective communication, emotional intelligence, and servant leadership. require considerable time to develop. When recruiting for a position, our goal is to efficiently onboard new hires and optimize the return on investment.

However, this does not imply that we exclusively seek out "perfect" candidates (if such individuals even exist). On the contrary, the skills-based approach to hiring encourages leaving our preconceived notions on what is the relevant experience and education at the door and to assess candidates on obtaining the relevant skills for the position.