As the economy turns around, construction companies are preparing to hire again! In some cases, they will simply hire back the employees they had to let go, in other cases they will have to start over.

Deciding between hiring a candidate that is a strong fit with your company culture or a candidate with an impressive skill set can feel like a no-win situation. So, don’t put yourself in a situation where you need to choose! Instead, change how you think about announcing your intention to hire and the hiring process.

When a company hires for culture they do so based on chemistry, personality aspects, drive, and other key elements that make working at the company desirable. The lingering question throughout the interview process ends up being “Will they fit in?” People can learn the skills necessary to do the job, but if the person’s personality is not a fit, they will not remain with the company.

When a company hires for skill, they are trying to ensure that the new employee is ready and able to do the job from day one. Here, the lingering question is “Do they have the past experience to help us achieve our goals?” Skills alone are not sufficient and are all that can be determine from a resume or application. A potential’s techniques and standards still need to be considered to see if they are at the same level as your company’s and how they will work with other employees.

Balancing the two approaches is not easy and normally results in one of them out weighing the other—usually with skill out weighing culture. The reason is because skill is easier to prove while most techniques to assess personality and thinking patterns are illegal and unreliable at best, to use during the interview process. This is normally the case until a system or technique custom to a company’s culture is identified and implemented.

A question I am often asked when talking about my book, CONTRACTORS: Doing it Right Not Just Getting it Done, is "Why did you target construction companies? What was it about their cultures that led you to research them, profile them, write about them?"

Want to know how I answer?

The people in this industry are very interesting-in a good way! They have a hands-on approach to learning and solving problems and they are the foundation to our economic success. Without this industry, we as a society can't grow. They also have a deep roots in tradition. It is interesting to see and be apart of how these elements come together.

The other thing that is really interesting about construction is they don’t really fit into either category of product-based business or service-based business. Yes when they are done you are left with something tangible (most of which you cannot see), but what really sells a construction company is the experience of working with them for so long—many of the companies described their relationships with their clients as a marriage.