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Attitude vs skills. What matters most when recruiting?
Posted On May 13, 2026
When recruiting new employees, employers are often faced with the same question, should you hire for attitude or sills?
While technical skills are essential for performing the job, attitude can have an even greater impact on long-term success. A positive attitude influences how someone learns, communicates, adapts and contributes within a team. In many roles, particularly those outside highly specialised industries, technical skills can be taught, but enthusiasm, motivation and willingness to learn are far harder to develop.
Finding the right balance between attitude and skills is often the key to making a successful hire.
The importance of attitude
A candidate with the right attitude is more likely to:
- Stay with your business long term
- Strive for success and contribute positively to the workplace
- Be motivated to learn and develop new skills
- Adapt well to change and new challenges
- Reduce recruitment risk through stronger engagement and commitment to the role
Technical skills can often be taught, but attitude, work ethic and willingness to contribute are much harder to train.
Evaluating skills
Technical skills can generally be divided into two categories, the “must-haves” and the “nice-to-haves”.
Throughout the recruitment process, employers are often weighing up the importance of each. In reality, it can be rare for a candidate to tick every single box. This is where other qualities become important, helping employers assess the broader value a candidate can bring to the role and the team beyond their CV.
When skills matter most
For highly specialised and technical roles such as engineering, software development and advanced trade positions, technical skills are often non-negotiable. These roles require specific qualifications, technical knowledge and industry experience that cannot always be learned quickly on the job.
In these situations, balancing technical capability with a strong attitude and willingness to contribute becomes especially important.
The winning combination
The strongest candidates are often those who can:
- Demonstrate a positive attitude and genuine enthusiasm for the opportunity
- Clearly communicate the skills and experience they bring to the role
- Show initiative through research, fresh ideas and curiosity
- Display a willingness to learn, grow and develop within the business
Questions matter
Well-crafted, open-ended interview questions give candidates the opportunity to showcase their experience, achievements and problem-solving ability, while also providing insight into their attitude, motivations and long-term goals.
At PN Personnel, we offer a range of Ability Assessments and Personality Testing solutions to support the recruitment decisions and provide deeper insight into a candidate’s motivations, drivers and behavioural tendencies.
These assessments can add significant value to your recruitment so you can make confident hiring decisions. To learn more,
click here or get in touch with our team today.
Matt Smout
Having extensive experience as an end to end recruiter, account manager, people leader and in business development – Matt has excellent knowledge of the 360-degree recruitment process and how to partner to understand businesses and add real value.
Matt takes pride in helping businesses achieve their growth strategies while contributing to making the regions a better place through delivering tailored talent solutions.
Phone 06 280 2405 Mobile 027 607 2030 Email
