The 6 Traits I Look for in Every Employee

I’ve hired a lot of people over the years, and one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that we often approach hiring backward.

We hire for a position. We create a job description, list the responsibilities, decide what experience someone should have and then search for the person who most closely matches that description.

That makes sense — until the company changes. And companies always change.

The marketing department you have today may look completely different two years from now. Technology eliminates certain responsibilities and creates new ones. Artificial intelligence is already changing how we think about roles that seemed well-defined only a few years ago. Departments overlap. Responsibilities move. Companies pivot.

The employee you hired for a specific box may suddenly discover that the box no longer exists. That’s why my philosophy has become simple: Hire people, not positions.

The résumé tells me what you’ve done. I want to know who you are.

Experience matters. Skills matter. I’m not suggesting you hire someone completely unqualified for a technical position because they have a great attitude.

But once someone clears the basic competency threshold, I’m much more interested in the characteristics that determine what they’ll become after they join the company.

There are six things I look for.

1. Positivity

Every growing company has problems. I want people who see those problems and immediately start thinking about solutions.

Positivity doesn’t mean pretending everything is great. Some of my best employees have been the first people to tell me when something isn’t working.

The difference is what comes next. Do they complain about the problem, or do they help solve it?

That distinction becomes incredibly important when you’re building something.

2. Adaptability

The job you hire someone to do today may not be the job you need them to do tomorrow. That used to happen over years. Now it can happen in months.

I want employees who can hear, “We’re changing direction,” and respond with curiosity rather than resistance. They don’t define themselves by a title. They define themselves by the value they bring to the organization.

3. Ownership

There’s a huge difference between someone who completes assignments and someone who takes ownership.

The first person asks, “What do you want me to do?” The second asks, “What are we trying to accomplish?”

That second question changes everything.

People with an ownership mentality don’t need every detail spelled out for them. They understand the objective, identify obstacles and take responsibility for getting to the other side.

4. A willingness to help — regardless of job title

One of my favorite types of employees is the person who sees something that needs to be done and simply helps.

“That’s not my department” is rarely the mentality of someone who becomes invaluable.

I’m not suggesting companies should exploit employees or expect one person to perform five jobs. There should be boundaries and accountability. But great teams have people who occasionally cross those boundaries because they care about the outcome.

Marketing helps sales. Sales gives product feedback. Operations notices a customer problem. An executive helps with something that technically belongs three levels below them.

The title matters less than the mission.

5. Learners

I would rather hire someone who knows 80% of what I need and desperately wants to learn the remaining 20% than someone who knows 100% today but believes they have nothing left to learn.

Skills have a shelf life. The ability to learn doesn’t.

Especially now, when technology can fundamentally change a profession in a remarkably short period of time, curiosity has become one of the most valuable professional skills.

6. Lifelong learners

There’s a subtle difference between someone willing to learn a new software program for work and someone who has made learning part of their identity.

I look for the second person.

They read. They ask questions. They experiment. They want to understand things outside their immediate responsibilities. They’re interested in where the company is going, not simply what they’re supposed to accomplish by Friday.

Those employees tend to evolve alongside the organization.

Hire for the company you haven’t built yet

The traditional job description assumes we know what the future organization will look like. Increasingly, we don’t.

AI will continue changing responsibilities. Organizational structures will become more fluid. Some departments will shrink, others will expand, and entirely new functions will emerge.

That makes hiring someone exclusively because they perfectly match today’s job description a potentially short-term solution.

Of course, you still need expertise. You still need accountability. And you still need people capable of doing the job you’re hiring them to do.

But I’ve come to believe the better question is: If this job disappeared tomorrow, would I still fight to keep this person?

When the answer is yes, you probably didn’t just hire someone to fill a position. You hired someone who can help build the company. And those are the employees who tend to stick.

I’ve hired a lot of people over the years, and one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that we often approach hiring backward.

We hire for a position. We create a job description, list the responsibilities, decide what experience someone should have and then search for the person who most closely matches that description.

That makes sense — until the company changes. And companies always change.