What does it take to be employable over the long term? We know it’s important to develop marketable skills, which can be learned. What’s becoming increasingly important is what I call survival skills and attitudes, those that last for a lifetime. These personal life and work attitudes may be a sense of humor, adaptability, kindness, honesty, integrity, fairness, risk sensitivity, and goal orientation. We called these EQ, the emotional quotient.
What do you do if you don’t have the skills an employer or customer wants? We’re seeing more companies hire for attitude and train for skills. More often, I see the best companies hire smart, confident, affirmative, risk taking, sharing, and happy people. These smart organizations have arrived at the same answer: ‘What people know is less important than who they are.’
This is more common for entry-level positions but this attitude is migrating to technical and mid-level professional as well. For example, Southwest Airlines is famous for its customer service fixation. Southwest Airlines looks for people with the optimum blend of energy, humor, team spirit and self-confidence.
Life Lesson Earned: Knowing what value you add to your employer or customer is probably the most important thing you can know about your work and career. In an operational sense, adding value means having the appropriate attitude and aptitude to develop and deliver cost-effective products or services. But, the value-added concept also includes personal principles and values.