16 Ways An Interviewer Judges Your Potential

• LinkedIn Influencer, Lou Adler, published this post originally on LinkedIn.

Someone just asked me what I look for when interviewing young people.

I answered, “I look for the same things I look for in older people. There are patterns of success evident very early on, and if a young person already possess them, he or she will be successful when they’re older."

So when I use the two-question Performance-based Interview to assess a person, here’s what I look for whether the person is young, old, or somewhere in between.

1. Commits and delivers results without making excuses.

This is the first rule of success. The important point is to get everything done that’s been assigned to you without ever making an excuse.

2. Confident, but not arrogant.

Taking reasonable risks, taking on projects outside of your comfort zone, willing to make mistakes, and being okay with failing, comes with you doing all of these things. Talking a good game, blaming others for not delivering the results, and not taking personal responsibility for whatever happens, is how you don’t get ahead. (See point 1.)

3. Has appropriate balance of thinking and achieving.

In business, not everything needs to be perfect. Those who are too smart overthink and underdo. Those who aren’t smart enough need too much direction or mess up too often. Getting a lot of good quality work done on time, all of the time, is the right balance.

Read ways 4-16 and the complete article