Adriane Schwager has interviewed thousands of people during her 20-year career working in recruiting — and she’s made hundreds of hires as a result.
Finding the right people for her team is all the more important now that she’s the CEO and co-founder of GrowthAssistant, a hiring platform that uses global talent to fill roles.
That means she has her guidelines for hiring superstars down to a T. She recently posted a thread on X detailing how she can spot what she calls a “10 out of 10 hire.”
In her post, Schwager says top-tier hires have “extremely high agency,” can wear many hats at once and demonstrate expertise in their specific domain, among other skills.
But she says two specific traits are “underrated” and help her figure out if she’s hiring the right person: resourcefulness and proactivity.
“They kind of go hand-in-hand here but are slightly different,” Schwager tells CNBC Make It.
To gauge proactivity, Schwager listens for candidates who can give examples of how they solved a problem they weren’t asked to solve.
Relatedly, she prizes people who can be resourceful to help grow her startup with limited funds and staffing. “I need to know that you’ve solved problems that didn’t require money,” she says. “I need to see an environment where you were resource-constrained so that I know you have that thinking capacity — that tool in your toolkit.”
Early-career workers with limited experience can find creative ways to show off these skillsets in an interview, Schwager says.
Consider any previous internships. Maybe you weren’t considered for a bigger team project, but rather than sit back, you took the initiative to approach your manager and take ownership for a small contribution, for example. “That shows proactivity to me,” Schwager says.
You can also discuss skills you learned at a part-time job during high school or college. Schwager recently interviewed an intern candidate and asked about a time he had to be resourceful.
The candidate was working for Papa John’s making deliveries in Chicago when his car broke down. Knowing that he needed to deliver the pizza within a certain time frame, he rented a bike for the remainder of his route “and delivered the pizza with two minutes to spare,” Schwager says. “So that shows resourcefulness, and I will say commitment” to getting the job done.
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