Most recruiters say they look for the right character. We define exactly what that means.
Hard working
Not capability. Commitment.
Hard working is the quality that shows up in the days nobody is watching. It is the extra hour a candidate spent preparing for our screening call. It is the way a reference describes them without prompting. It is the pattern across a career of doing what was needed, not what was asked.
- Tell me about a time you delivered something beyond what your role required. What made you do it?
- Describe a project where you were the last one working on it. Why did you stay with it?
- Walk me through a week where the workload doubled. How did you handle it?
- When the pressure was on, was this person someone the team could rely on?
- Give an example of them going beyond their role.
- Would you hire them again? What role and why?
A candidate told us their project was cancelled three days before launch. They rebuilt the key deliverable over a weekend on their own initiative. Nobody asked. That is hard working.
Humble
The quality that predicts whether someone grows or plateaus.
Humble is not quiet. Humble is honest. It is a candidate who tells you what they do not know before you ask. Who credits the people around them. Who has a real answer when you ask about their biggest professional failure. Humble is the strongest single predictor of long-term growth inside a team.
- What is the biggest professional mistake you have made? What did you learn?
- Describe feedback that was hard to hear. What did you do with it?
- Who has taught you the most in your career? What did they teach you?
- How does this person handle being wrong?
- How do they treat colleagues who are more junior than them?
- Do they credit others when things go well?
We asked a senior manager about their biggest professional failure. They described a decision that cost their company £200,000. No excuses. No blame. Just what they learned. That is humble.
Hungry
Ambition is not arrogance. Hunger is quiet, consistent, and self-directed.
Hungry is a candidate who has a plan for their own growth and is already acting on it. They are reading, building, taking on side projects, learning a new tool. Hunger is not about wanting a promotion. It is about wanting to be better next month than they are this month.
- What are you working on right now to get better at your craft?
- Where do you want your career to be in three years? What are you doing this year to get there?
- Tell me about a skill you learned outside of work. How did you learn it?
- How does this person react to a stretch challenge?
- Are they self-directed or do they need to be pushed?
- What did they take on that they were not asked to?
We asked a candidate what they wanted to be doing in three years. They described a path with specific steps and named the skills they were already building. They were not reading from a script. They had been thinking about it. That is hungry.
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