‘’Hire character train skill’’ is a commonly used phrase in the world of HR. And it sounds so great! Really! I mean the world is now full of creative young people who can learn by themselves many things in this world where data and information are the new oil. Giving to such people the opportunity to grow inside your company by hiring them and training them the required skills is the best thing that a company can do. 

But there is a catch! There is always a catch and I will explain it in the next row. It’s gonna be short, concise and on point. 

This type of attitude towards knowledge of some specific typology of people, self taught people, indicates a very strong character and high and very high towards work ethics. Because if a person, willingly chooses to learn something new, no matter if it is in hers/his field of expertise, then you are dealing with a professional or a person that has the required character to assimilate new knowledge and will become a specialist. If you are an astute HR person, and you see such a person, the only skills that you can train are the soft skills, and believe me such a character will not like empty and pointless time management training or other soft skills. These characters, these self thought people are the backbone of your company. But you have to be a pro in order to recognize one! 

And if you have them inside your company be happy and joyful about this. Because those people will be loyal to your company and they will deliver and over deliver just because you let them learn and you opened them the door towards knowledge. That is what true leadership should do a must always do!

On the other hand there is also the smoke screen behind this phrase ‘’hire character train skill’’. Some might ask: how? Well it is very simple and I’ll explain as short as I can. 

Many companies that are putting upfront the phrase ‘’we are like a family’’ tend to become in reality family managed companies. How? Well by hiring the relatives or close friends there. Make no mistake this is not a problem as long as those people have the right type of character to proceed in your organization as I wrote above. But in most cases behind this phrase ‘’hire character train skill’’ what hides inside your organization are people that are lacking even the basic skill and knowledge to look for information. They lack character to improve and the willingness to do so because they are protected by the ‘’family’’. And you know as well as I that this is common practice in dysfunctional companies to promote such high phrases that belong to great coaches – Simon Sinek in this case, and hide the ones that simulate performance behind them. 

So as always there is something to learn from our messages: be truthful towards your organization and towards what your organization wants. Identify the right people for the job or the people who are willing to learn and improve by themselves! They will help you reach Mars. 

On the other hand if you think that offering soft skills training to people that have no idea how to do their job and then try to cover it behind the smoke screen then you are on the wrong side of tracks. 

Do not promote performance simulation inside your company and mainly try as much as possible to avoid this type of situation: train a man in the art of birth giving, without taking in consideration that the man has absolutely no possibility to give birth to a child, but still at the end of the training you give him a signed diploma with maximums core. And furthermore after the training he might say, no matter his motives ‘’I see very big challenges ahead but I am optimistic that I will be able to be successful in this endeavor’’. 

If you did this, if you plan to do this, than you may reconsider the phrase ‘’hire character, train skill’’