Elon Musk often talks about hiring job candidates for “clear evidence of exceptional ability”

But how do you identify exceptional potential employees?

13 non-obvious habits to look for in hiring high performing employees:

1/ People who take notorious notes

Notes notes. Even your notes should have notes

Notes are the closest thing that humans have to time travel

You'll miss a finite detail and the notes will help you remember instantly

If you want to be more focused, focus on note taking

2/ People with a strong self awareness to accept and manage feedback proactively

Low performers:
Can’t take feedback

Average performers:
Take feedback and attempt to integrate it

High performers:
Seek feedback and integrate it as essential to their success

3/ People who write well

You can’t make work happen if you can’t write well

It doesn’t matter if you’re a designer, engineer or marketer, you’ll always have points to get across

Writing well means:

1) Clear thinking
2) Empathy

Writing-well moves mountains

4/ People who lift others up

Let’s be real: startup life is tough

Having team members lift each other up is your team’s magic pill

So yeah, I dig folks who lift others up

5/ People who aren’t hyper productive every single day

You cannot be hyper productive everyday. It’s unsustainable

Productivity ebbs and flows. That’s okay

Sustainable workers outperform

6/ People who listen well

Listeners make others feel valued

Remember the RASA framework:

- Receive: focus your attention on what the person is saying
- Appreciate: show signs of appreciation
- Summarize: sum up in a few words what the person was telling you
- Ask a question

7/ People who smile and laugh often

These are the little things that make work fun

Startup life without fun is basically impossible

Practice safe stress

8/ People with an "us" mentality (not a "me" mentality)

Everyone loves a team player

If you want to go fast, go alone
If you want to go far, go together

Employees who understand this are massive multipliers

9/ People who are allergic to excuses

Superpowers:

1, Know how to make mistakes
2. Know how to apologize

10/ People who aren’t afraid to ask quality questions

Better questions lead to better answers

How to ask quality questions:

- Don’t ask yes/no qs
- Use follow up qs
- Never interrupt
- Ask qs to which you want to know the answers
- Never ramble
- Be comfortable with pauses

11/ People who are able to prioritize on high value work

I like President Eisenhower's model:

Important + Urgent -> Do 1st
Important + Non-Urgent -> Schedule
Less Important + Urgent -> Delegate
Less Important + Non-Urgent -> Don’t Do

Point: whatever framework you use, use it

12/ People with high emotional IQ

How to gauge for emotional IQ:

Ask questions that make people open-up/vulnerable

Keep it light and not too in intense or else you're flying too close to the sun

13/ People who are (mostly) on time

If you’re consistently late, you’re basically saying that you’re time is more important than someone else

Not cool. Bad vibe

Point: you might think people don’t pay attention to punctuality. People do

Being late ain’t great

Those are 13 habits of high performers

If you’re searching for a new role or looking to hire top talent:

I just launched a high quality job board for community based companies called gregslist

I’m personally curating every single role

Sneak peek here: https://pallet.xyz/list/gregslist/ 

Follow me @gregisenberg for more threads like this

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Thread recap:

A few non obvious habits/traits of high performing employees:

- Take notes
- Listen well
- Prioritize tasks
- Smile & laugh often
- Sustainably working (not grinding 24/7)