Attitude is not monolithic.

We can change our perception of what a good attitude is. We can accommodate different attitudes to enhance cultures. We can train attitudes.

We can and should do these things.

It's true that interviews may flag up a "bad attitude", but do you question where that attitude comes from and whether it represents what that person is like to work with when they are not in the artificially stressful situation of an interview?

Just look at how your attitudes have changed from spending so much time on LinkedIn. "Agree? Thoughts?" is not how people talk in real life. Let's grow together. Great post! These are learned behaviours.

Is your attitude really so fixed after all?

To say "hire for attitude, skills can be learnt", exculpates employers from the responsibility of enabling your people to succeed, when you should be giving them the tools, training, support and leadership they need.

"Oh they weren't successful because of a bad attitude and not learning the skills required"

After my semi-viral post on hiring for neurodivergence, I can't tell you how many DMs I had from people who had been sacked for their neurodivergence under the guise of bad attitude. Some of these at Director, CxO level.

Indeed, flip the switch on your perception of why you rule people out, instead ruling them in by challenging yourself at root, and you may find another avenue for tackling The Great Candidate Shortage (which is not a thing).

Rather than rely on a pithy inspirational linkedinism, which even Simon doesn't believe given his recent 4-page treatise/job advert on what he NEEDS from a PA.

Try this instead:

- establish your hard minimums from your job description. Build your functional requirement from there
- establish what good looks like in a candidate. This will be a combination of skills, attitude, learnings/experience, in some cases qualifications. No shortcuts. No assumptions. Do the work
- pay the right amount for what you need
- be a decent employer
- establish the right routes to finding these candidates. It might be advertising. It might be transactional recruiters. It might be non-transactional recruiters (👋). It might be referrals or something else.
- run a critical path recruitment process

Don't just hire for attitude. Recruit right.