As a business coach, I have mentored and coached CEOs from around the country. The #1 complaint I receive from chief executives is, “I can’t find good people!”

The hard pill that every successful business leader has to swallow is that you get the people you deserve!

The right people in your business team will make or break your company. On average, frontline employees account for 90% of a company’s profits. Understanding how to hire A-player employees on your team is a game changer for most businesses.

One of the top keys to the success of any company’s hiring process is understanding the top 3 priorities for hiring.

A very common hiring problem you may be doing:

Many employers hire employees for skill. They will hire the most talented person in their field. But why do most companies fire employees?

Answer: character issues

Character issues can be stealing from the company, lying to a client or boss, being the wrong fit for the company culture, or being disruptive in the workplace.

Many companies hire for skill, but fire for character. Why not hire first for character?

Here are the top 3 priorities to hire in order of importance:

1. Character:
This is the moral quality distinctive to an individual. There a many tools to assess a potential employee’s character.

I recommend the Step One Survey II to all of my clients. This is a comprehensive assessment that evaluates 4 major areas of character: Integrity, Work Ethic, Propensity to Substance Abuse, and Reliability.

2. Personality:
It is vital that your position matches your potential employee’s personality style. For example, you would not want a highly outgoing, big picture thinker for a position where they will be locked in a room by themselves analyzing detailed information.

I recommend all of my clients take a deep look into DISC Theory to understand what type of personality would be best suited for the position.

Then, have your candidates take the DISC Personality Assessment. This is a systemized assessment that can help hiring managers understand the unique personality traits and behaviors of individuals in order to make the best decisions in hiring.

3. Skill:
This is their ability, expertise and experience in this position.

Obviously, it is important that your new employee be skilled in his or her new position. Though very important, this is not as important as character and personality. If your candidate is very skilled, but has poor character and is not a good personality fit for the position, do not hire them. He or she will be a bad hire and will cost your company a lot of money.

Understanding these priorities coupled with following the best practices when hiring new employees will help you ensure that you get the right people on your team.