Top 5 Qualities Recruiters Look For in Candidates

Recruiters go through hundreds of candidates for a single position, so what makes one particular candidate stand out amongst the rest of the candidates with similar qualifications and experience? Even though technical skills and education are important, it’s often the soft skills, the interpersonal skills you have, the way you work and communicate with others that truly sets you apart. 

In this post, we talk about the top 5 qualities that employers look for in candidates and how you may highlight them in your interview.

• Listen actively
• Provide an appropriate response
• Politely ask them to elaborate or repeat their question if you don't know how to answer or need time to come up with a response

Do take note that if you’re corresponding via email before going for a face-to-face interview, and you’ve been using AI to help you communicate, they can straightaway tell, especially when you have trouble speaking complete sentences in front of them, and although it might not be a deal-breaker, it could skew the recruiter’s perception of you. 



Confidence

You’ve been invited to an interview, so you must already fulfil the prerequisite requirements in some way. Hence, it’s the time to show the recruiter that they haven’t made a mistake in taking time out of their busy day to interview you.

• Be confident in the skills that you have and the past experience you have gained.
• Talk about how those skills make you a valuable addition to the company.
• Do not have empty confidence and oversell yourself on things that you may only have a vague idea about.
  • This might backfire when the interviewer asks you for further details and you are unable to answer, leaving them with a bad impression of you.

Ambition 

Without a doubt, ambition is something that employers look for in future employees, so don’t be shy about sharing your hopes and dreams. 

• Highlight how you achieved a career-related goal in the past and how your next goal could possibly contribute to the company’s objectives.

This indicates that you have a path you’re constantly working towards, that you’re focused and driven, and not just simply going along with the ebb and flow of life aimlessly. 


Willingness to Learn 

As we have previously established, employers prefer to hire people who are ambitious, and this also relates to how they value those who constantly seek to improve themselves. When you’re ambitious, you would definitely have the eagerness and curiosity to learn more.

• In the interview, if you are, for example, unfamiliar with certain systems or programs, let them know that you are open to learning it.
• Recount a past experience in which you have taken the initiative to learn something new.
  • For example, talk about how you learned to use a video editing software in order to create promotional videos to advertise something.

Being willing to learn new things shows that you are adaptable and humble in knowing that there is always something new out there for you to learn. 

Teamwork

While not every job would need you to work with your colleagues, if you cannot work well with others, that means you cannot contribute and collaborate effectively to achieve common goals within the company.

• Mention to the recruiter during the interview on how you have worked on past projects that required collaboration and the outcome of them as well.

We hope this article has enlightened you on how to be a candidate that stands out among the rest and land your dream job.

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