In case you are looking for staff, here are the traits of the candidates I helped hire who made it across the finish line in 2025:
These were traits that were non-negotiable across all roles:
- Accountability – owns outcomes, no blame shifting
- Comfort being measured – accepts metrics and feedback
- For example, I once interviewed someone who worked in the fraud department of a credit card company. They tracked her ability to close a fraud claim every 5 minutes, and they held her to that metric. Someone with this type of background will be comfortable taking accountability for their RAAG report stats.
- Reliability & consistency – low drama, dependable execution
- This often means they were not my most engaging interviewee. They may even need time to warm up. Probe for things like dependability and notice if they’ve been promoted within a company. Both signs that someone will quietly do their job without a lot of drama.
- Respect for process – follows systems before improving them
- Calm under pressure – emotionally regulated in stress
- Real-world operating experience – understands consequences and has worked in consequence-rich environments where mistakes, delays, poor communication, or lack of follow-through cause an immediate problem for a customer, crew, schedule, or business.
- Beyond the obvious construction/trades, property and facilities management, and home services industries, I’ve also found great candidates in hospitality, logistics/warehouse operations, and emergency response environments.
Role specific must haves:
- Residential Sales Associate: Listening, trust-based selling, closing comfort
- Interestingly, I’ve found that because RSAs often act more as advisors than pushy salespeople, real “sales skills” are not as useful as finding someone who is calm, organized and represents the brand well.
- Make self-generated leads part of the RSA role from Day 1 – With self-generated leads becoming a bigger part of the RSA role, don’t let a new hire get comfortable relying only on inbound leads. From the beginning, build prospecting into the job: door-hanging in neighborhoods where you’re already working, stopping into dental offices and other “lite” commercial prospects during downtime, joining networking groups, and building referral relationships. If these activities are treated as part of the job from Day 1, they become part of the RSA’s routine rather than something you’re trying to introduce six months later when inbound leads slow down.
- Commercial Sales: Listening, ability to start a conversation, drive, organization
- In my experience, the most organized CSAs are the most successful. Probe for their ability to use a CRM (often you’ll hear “I couldn’t live without my CRM)
- Production / Service: Quality focus, ability to direct others (“directing” on Caliper), service mindset
- Office: Thoroughness, happy/”glass half full” personality, technology skills
- Management: Decision ownership, systems thinking, enforcing standards, delegation
Just as important are the traits that did NOT correlate to a candidate’s hireablity:
- High sociability or outgoing personality
- This mattered only in SA roles and often proved a detriment in office and production roles, where high sociability and chattiness can get in the way of getting work done.
- High emotional expressiveness
- Fast talkers / verbal speed / quick closers / chattiness
- Interview likability or “good vibes”
- People are very polished in interviews. This is why it’s important to put candidates through at least 4-5 interviews before you hire them. Along the way, this allows them to relax and show their true selves.
Backgrounds that the hires came from:
- Consequence-rich environments
- Careers which required daily/weekly accountability
- Customer-facing and problem ownership roles
- Operationally messy jobs
Longevity at previous jobs:
Most of the hires demonstrated 3–5 years of tenure in their prior roles. These are not job hoppers; they are professionals who stay long enough to learn, contribute, and deliver measurable results.
In some cases, a candidate may have had a shorter stint in a role that simply wasn’t the right fit. However, those instances were balanced by a consistent history of 2–5+ years in previous positions, showing stability, growth, and commitment over time.
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