To Avoid Hiring a Bad Attitude, You Need to Read This

The last thing you want is a negative employee bringing down the vibe of your workplace

Have you ever noticed how the recruitment game is a bit like the dating game? At the start, you’re all excited and you’re trusting what they’re telling you. You’re wearing your rose-coloured glasses and your open to believing the best about your new candidate.

It’s new, it’s different, and it’s a tad exciting.

But when you’re in charge of recruitment, how do you know who you’re really employing?

All you really can go off is their resume, their interviewing skills and their past references, right?

Let me tell you a quick story to show you how easy it is to fake it…

A manager was employed to oversee a busy office of payroll staff in a major organisation. Oh he oozed the charm. At the start, the staff loved his open-door policy and really loved slacking off for a long coffee break, chatting in his office. However, when the poop hit the fan and they’d ask for help, he’d kick his feet up onto his desk, lean back in his chair and state, ‘Not my issue, sort it’. It wasn’t long before complaints were made. Long story short, his whole resume and references were fraudulent. So how did he pass the recruitment stage?

Brilliant resumes don’t always ring true. Anyone can be a brilliant at writing. Have you heard the saying, ‘if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh**’?

We’ve seen it all. Meeting a candidate and asking those out of box questions is a vital part of the recruitment process that enables you to eliminate poopy attitudes.

Here are our top 5 personality types to watch out for when hiring for your team

Any decent recruitment specialist has been trained to be a people whisperer. We can silently judge a person’s attitude while they’re speaking, picking up on their body language and mannerisms.

But if you’ve been thrown into the recruitment role at your work, you can’t be expected to know all the ins and outs of human personalities or how to make an assessment of one in a 45 minute interview.

To make your life a little easier, here are the top 5 traits we’ve noticed about negative employees to give you a heads up.

1. The aggressive conversationalist

If you’re talking to a candidate who is constantly talking over you, seemingly ‘strutting their stuff’ and coming across as arrogant, this is a warning sign that they’re nothing more than a talker. They’re adapt at running their mouth all day long without really doing much work, and in turn, creating divisions within your company.

2. The narcissistic self-publicist

Narcissists are an interesting one… and I’ve dealt with a few in my time.

I’ll never forget the day that a guy asked to meet with me to see if I could help him secure a role. He sat down in my office and said: ‘I’m an Enterprise Architect. Do you know what that is?’

I made a decision in that very moment not to introduce him to any of my clients.

If you’re interviewing a candidate you catch yourself feeling belittled, or are trying your hardest not to fall asleep and start dribbling as they’re only talking about themselves, you may be dealing with a narcissistic personality – ‘I did this, I achieved this, I wouldn’t expect you to understand’…When a person presents with this type of attitude, they’re likely to overshadow other people’s accomplishments in your company, and may even steal the glory for themselves. This will muck up your harmonious work place (trust me on this one).

3. The passive in-activist

Perhaps the cleverest of deceptive employees is the passive in-activist. They’re the type who will finish their work day having done next to nothing. They hate using initiative, but are quick to take ownership when praise is being offered. They’re the ultimate lazy employee but who can blame them? If they get away with it, they’ll keep working this way. How do you identify an in-activist? One trick I’ve learnt is by paying attention to how they describe their achievements… if they only talk about the destination and not what was involved in the journey, dig deeper. If they struggle to elaborate then it’s possible that they hitched a ride.

4. The change resistor

The comfort zone is a real thing for some people. They get so set in their own ways, that any thought of change leaves them shaking like a sweet tooth in a dentist’s chair. Although these people are harmless, your business will become an extinct species if your staff can’t adapt. These employees are sometimes sought after when their peers and managers are also change resistors. Either way – train yourself on how to identify a change resistor.

5. The endless pessimist

Negativity is so draining. I’m not sure if you’ve heard but it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. When employees are constantly listening to, ‘our pay sucks’, ‘why should we do overtime with no reward?’, ‘we never get any praise’, ‘management don’t care’, they’ll start believing it and the entire vibe in your business will change. And although workplaces can’t always be sunshine and roses, stamping out negativity is a great start. Keep an eye out for Negative Nancy’s!

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][ctt template=”1″ link=”ICA0d” via=”yes” ]To avoid hiring a bad attitude, you NEED to read this #hiringtips #recruitment #hiring101[/ctt]

Do you need help from Recruitment Specialists, your people whisperers?

The one thing you need to know about these negative personality types is that they’re often geniuses at hiding their real personality. How else do you think they’ve worked their way up in the business world? It can be a lot of hard work… where to start?

A quick hint is to look at the amount of jobs they’ve had. If they’re constantly changing jobs, you may have reason to be a tad cautious.

Make sure you design your interviews so that they give insight to a personality. A lot of hiring managers are too focused on a job description and not focused enough on a personality description.

And don’t always judge a person by their CV. Dig Deeper.

It takes a seasoned people professional when it comes to interviewing and weeding out less than desirable hires. It’s a vital process… particularly for your management teams.

Don’t get me wrong, bad attitudes aren’t a good thing to have anywhere in your organisation, but have you ever heard the saying ‘like attracts like’? Managers make hiring decisions and you want to trust that they bring the right attitudes into your business.

Thinking you might need some help? A recruiter should manage this seamlessly, presenting shortlists of both technically and culturally vetted candidates. It takes a special kind of interviewing technique to really trip up dodgy candidates and including a recruiter in your interview process can make all the difference.

We’re trained not to ask candidates the same questions… we ask them the hard questions… the one’s that they can’t prepare for and that give real insight to them as a person.

If you’re already super-happy with your work environment, and don’t want to mess with that, we’re here to help you with your recruitment process to make sure you get the very best candidate. Don’t let your happy business be screwed up by your rose-coloured glasses.

Are we connected?

To keep up to date with recruitment tips and trick, make sure you follow Sense Recruitment on LinkedIn. And if you liked this article, we’d love for you to share it with your networks[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]