Why Skills and Experience Don’t Matter As Much As You Think

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Why Skills and Experience Don’t Matter As Much As You Think

If you’ve been following the blog, you know that Aventure takes considerable time with each job candidate, drawing out the skills and work history to develop a full picture of potential and possible placement. What powers that placement, however, isn’t always what the candidate has the ability to do; rather, it’s what makes the candidate want to do it.

To get to the heart of a candidate, Roxane Minner, Branch Manager with Aventure in Grinnell, Iowa, likes to ask interview questions that make a candidate round out their work experience with their true motivations and career goals. She believes all good candidates should be able to answer questions about what drives them, and what drives them crazy.

Consider your answers to some of her favorite questions:

  • What kind of work are you looking for?
  • What are your interests?
  • What has been your favorite job so far?
  • What makes you want to go to work every day?
  • What made you?

When answering these questions, do so as honestly as you can. Aventure knows first hand that a happy, motivated employee makes a happy client, and the goal is to make sure the fit benefits everyone involved.

Having skills and experience may open many doors, but a poor attitude or performance will close them. This is why executives like Roxane try to coach candidates during the initial conversations. When discussing one of her most memorable interviews, Roxane remembered a highly qualified candidate who wasn’t putting his best foot forward.

“This gentlemen was concentrating on how bad it was at the last employer. And he sat with his arms crossed across the table from me,” said Mrs. Minner. When he accepted her offer of constructive criticism, she told him how his presence came off as angry. “Looking at all of your skills and your work history, you have a lot of things to offer one of our clients, but if you go into the interview like this, it’s not going to work.” The candidate adjusted accordingly, and is now one of Aventure’s many success stories.

“We treat everyone with respect. We treat everyone the same. I want to get a smile out of everyone who walks in my door. The jobs are there; it’s just finding the people. The right people,” says Minner. The right people, it turns out, are the ones who want to work, who know what they want, and who show up every day ready to tackle what is in front of them. After all, skills and experience don’t make the opportunities work, the candidates do.

Roxane Minner enjoys that her position at Aventure allows her to tap into her love of teaching and sharing information. Her days are powered by her interactions with her staff, the candidates that walk through the door, and Starbucks Double Shot Iced Coffee straight from the can.

 

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