What Employers Are Looking For - Part 2

February 16, 2012

Interview with Mark Murphy, author of the book Hiring for Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude [1]

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Mike Carruthers:
It used to be if you wanted a job pretty much all you needed is to have the right skills and while those skills are still important…

Mark Murphy:
What really is important nowadays is can you be one of us, can you fit our organization, can you fit our culture – that’s now become the number 1 issue.
 

Mark Murphy, author of the book Hiring for Attitude [1], says that requires a shift as you approach your job search.

We always talk about don’t spend so much time trying to be a job seeker, try and be a company seeker. Identify the organizations where you would be a great fit and really go strong after those.

In order to know which companies are a good fit for you, you need to do a little research.

One of the rules we have is that don’t apply to the organization until you’ve talked to at least 1 person who actually works there. And you know in today’s highly inter-connected Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter world finding somebody who works at a particular company is usually a pretty easy thing to do. We’ve even seen candidates go so far as to actually call the company, just call the front desk – “Can you tell me what it’s like to work at this company?”

Employers who want candidates who fit into their culture have figured out where they’re most likely to find those people.

The best sources, according to what the companies have told us (so we studies more than 2 thousand companies on this) and they said the number 1 place we get our best performers from is employee referrals.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here [2]