What firms can learn now from Singapore PM's 10th National Day Rally Speech

In his 10th National Day Rally Speech, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for top schools to admit more than just the brightest students. He spoke about admitting students with character, drive, resilience, and leadership.

This shift in mindset is evidence that some influential decision-makers believe that good students are not defined simply by good academic grades. According to PM Lee’s speech, a good student is one who possesses qualities such as character, resilience, leadership, and drive, in addition to good academic grades.

If schools are now looking beyond academic excellence alone, perhaps organisations here in Singapore should take the cue from PM Lee’s speech to look beyond the traditional requirements of skills, qualifications, and experience.

Almost all participating companies in a recent survey believe they have a significant percentage of bad hires. These numbers are quite dismal considering the fact that a significant number of employees in Singapore are well-educated, with at least a diploma or a basic degree.

The survey results also imply that employers are in dire need of a better approach to hiring to ensure they do not waste precious time, resources, and opportunity costs acquiring “bad hires”.

In his best-selling book Good To Great, author Jim Collins says: “In determining ‘the right people’, the good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational background, practical skills, specialised knowledge, or work experience.”

In other words, if you wish to hire good candidates for your organisation, you need to look beyond just skills, qualifications, and experience.

Perhaps it is time organisations here in Singapore shifted their hiring mindset to focus beyond the traditional requirements of skills, qualifications, and experience.

A good place to start is for organisations to begin looking at the Cultural Fit, Attitude, Aptitude, and Personality dimensions of a potential candidate. Cultural fit is critical because selecting a candidate with a poor fit could spell trouble for both the candidate and the organisation.

Selecting a candidate with a poor attitude, aptitude, and personality could also be equally disastrous since it would have a direct impact on the way the candidate learns and interacts with others in the organisation.

A candidate with the good cultural fit, positive attitude, great aptitude, and pleasant personality would almost always trump a candidate with just great academic results, skills, and experience but poor attitude, aptitude, and personality.