During a talent shortage, companies cannot afford to hire people at random. Every new employee should strengthen the business and help it develop. A high salary does not guarantee that someone will perform their responsibilities well—even when the person is an experienced professional.
Companies unable to compete with the highest market salaries often turn toward people who are new to the industry. In that case, hiring decisions depend on the candidate’s potential: both technical skills and interpersonal qualities that can be developed over time.
The qualities below are the ones I pay attention to when hiring IT specialists. For each quality, I have included questions that help clarify whether it is genuinely present in a candidate rather than merely claimed on a résumé.
1. Team Player
If I had to choose only one quality, I would choose this one. It is much harder to reach agreement with a strong individualist when a project runs into difficulty. Individualists are often less willing to make concessions or seek compromise. Even a win-win strategy requires at least some instinct for teamwork.
Translating business needs into useful IT requirements also requires being part of a team, whether that team is a large department or a single IT specialist working with the rest of the company.
Individualists may become fascinated by technology at the expense of the business task. The result can be missed deadlines, deviation from the required outcome, or no usable result at all.
How to identify it
- Ask about previous work, study, or personal projects. Does the candidate mainly say “I” or “we”?
- Ask the candidate to describe each participant’s contribution to a project.
- When interviewing an intern or graduate, ask how their academic supervisor contributed to their thesis or final project.
2. A Realistic Understanding of the Job
When hiring, I focus not on how a person worked in previous organizations but on how they expect to work in yours. A candidate’s expectations may be idealized and may not match reality.
For example, a candidate may say that they will modify software modules only when the customer provides a complete formal specification and that gathering or clarifying requirements is not their responsibility.
The recruiter or hiring manager must decide whether the company can genuinely meet those expectations. Otherwise, the disagreement becomes a delayed conflict: the employee and the company begin the relationship with incompatible views of the job.
It resembles the well-known question: “Do you want to be president, or do you want to work like a president?”
How to identify it
- What do you expect your normal working day in this role to look like?
- What difficulties do you think you may face in this position?
3. Thinking in Terms of the Business and the Customer
In the age of digital transformation, IT specialists need to think in terms of customer and business value rather than technology alone.
People rarely intend to harm the company. More often, they simply do not consider the business impact while pursuing their technical interests. Technology then becomes an end in itself. Without a clear understanding of the value being created, the company is left with costs rather than results.
A specialist who understands that the team is building a cathedral has an advantage over someone who sees only the individual bricks.
How to identify it
- Would you learn a different and less fashionable technology stack if the company’s strategy required it?
- The company decides to abandon an IT solution you have developed for years and move to an off-the-shelf product. Would you stay or leave? Why?
- When implementing a feature, do you think about its design and user experience?
4. Openness and Communication
The speed at which a business moves and operational problems are solved depends heavily on communication. A person’s communication style can influence the atmosphere of the entire team.
Not every IT specialist is comfortable communicating with colleagues, let alone customers. Yet both internal and external customers expect attention and do not want to be left alone with an IT product.
A technical specialist’s willingness to speak directly with users can determine the success of a project team. This applies not only to support or operations staff but also to specialists who normally work behind the scenes.
How to identify it
- Would you be willing to advise users during implementation and run training sessions or workshops?
- Your manager insists on a decision that you believe will damage the project. What do you do?
5. Adaptability
Adaptability is one reason some companies survive a crisis calmly while others disappear because they cannot adjust to change. Technology is a tool that helps an organization become adaptable, but the IT specialists providing that capability must be adaptable themselves.
Adaptability makes it possible to change plans quickly when a product or service does not satisfy the customer. Agile methods can support flexible execution, but a method alone cannot compensate for people who resist every change.
How to identify it
- What would you do if task and project priorities changed constantly?
- Which working model suits you better: Agile or Waterfall? Why?
- When did you last avoid a traffic jam by choosing an unfamiliar route?
- Have you deliberately tried a different route to work or study?
6. Innovation and Curiosity
IT specialists have to keep learning if they want to remain adaptable and capable of innovation. They need a proactive attitude that helps them anticipate problems instead of waiting for a crisis.
When these qualities are weak, a future employee may struggle to decide how to act when the familiar plan stops working.
An understanding of disruptive technology adds a strategic dimension. It is not essential for every role, but a candidate who studies emerging trends may contribute significantly to a project or to the long-term development of the company.
How to identify it
- Which areas of business do you think may disappear, and why?
- What have you read recently? What are you planning to learn next?
- Why did you choose your current technology stack?
7. A Connection to Sales
Everyone in a company contributes to sales. Everyone.
It is valuable when a candidate understands that their work should generate profit for the company, either directly or indirectly. IT specialists sometimes distance themselves from that responsibility: “We maintain the servers,” or “We write the code; what happens afterward is not our concern.”
Modern business requires departments to cooperate and support one another across functional boundaries.
Each person must still be responsible for their own area. A developer is not responsible for the sales result, just as a call center is not responsible for code quality. Without clear ownership, chaos follows.
At the same time, ownership should not become isolation. A call center can collect information about system failures and work with developers to improve the product. The company needs a balance between “everyone owns their area” and “everyone contributes to the whole.”
How to identify it
- Ask why a business needs automation, digitalization, or transformation. How many follow-up questions does it take before the candidate mentions customers or money?
- Which order seems better: make a presentation and then build the system, or build the system and then present it?
8. Respect for the Budget and the MVP
An ideal candidate treats the department’s budget almost as carefully as their own money and does not spend it without a reason.
One sign of this mindset is the ability to prototype quickly and test a technical hypothesis without demanding a large investment. Experienced IT specialists are sometimes uncomfortable with this. They may prefer a thorough, monumental approach in which every step is designed in advance.
Business reality often requires faster and more decisive action. The goal is not careless work but the smallest responsible experiment that can provide useful evidence.
How to identify it
- What would a minimally equipped workplace need? What would you add to create the best possible workplace, and why?
- What would you give up first if the budget had to be reduced?
- What would you do to test a hypothesis quickly?
9. Simplicity
The more experienced a specialist becomes, the easier it is for them to overcomplicate a solution. This is not necessarily a bad habit. A large body of knowledge makes people consider more factors, classifications, hierarchies, risks, and exceptions.
This has nothing to do with age. It is a consequence of expertise.
Nevertheless, an IT specialist is expected to provide simple solutions. Methods such as TRIZ, customer journey mapping, and design thinking can help avoid complexity where it is not required—which is almost everywhere.
Complex systems tend toward self-destruction. Smartphones with one button were so effective that eventually even that button disappeared.
TRIZ describes the ideal system as one that does not exist while all its functions are still performed. For a company, that is a powerful advantage: problems are solved simply, quickly, and with maximum use of existing resources.
How to identify it
- Are you familiar with TRIZ, customer journey mapping, or design thinking?
- Would you prefer one screen with clear indicators and no menu, or a large menu with several levels of subitems?
- Which software product do you consider a benchmark for clarity and ease of use?
10. The Desire to Create
Last in the list, but not in importance, is the desire to work and create products that other people will use.
When an IT specialist says that they do not care what they work on, they may be pursuing only an external goal—perhaps a career chosen by parents, a partner, or circumstances rather than personal interest.
Such employees can still work successfully in an organization for a long time. Professionalism matters. Yet enthusiasm can sometimes outweigh experience, and breakthrough ideas often require precisely that enthusiasm.
How to identify it
- Does the candidate ask what they can read, study, or explore before joining so that they can become productive more quickly?
Conclusion
Some of these qualities may be unnecessary in a particular organization, industry, or role. Technical competence and fit with the position must naturally be evaluated as well.
Still, finding a candidate who combines most of the qualities above is rare and fortunate. When such a person appears, do not let them leave the interview without an offer.