5 Traits To Look for When Hiring Business and IT Innovators

If innovation is the key to a technology company’s success, hiring resilient and forward-thinking employees is the cornerstone. Businesses that thrive today are doing so because engineering, product, and design decision-makers have prioritized a culture of innovation and have learned how to attract the best candidates that bring innate skills to push creativity into action. If you are looking to hire a “trailblazer” in the modern workforce, there are five traits to look for.

1. High emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is perhaps the trailblazer’s most important skill. An employee with high emotional intelligence fosters teamwork by creating a safe environment where ideas can be shared and iterated. This sense of trust enables the creative process and successful collaboration. It’s the “secret sauce” of innovation. In addition to fueling co-working, a highly emotionally intelligent employee builds bridges with not only internal groups but also with clients and outside stakeholders. Look for skills that demonstrate strong collaboration and communication capabilities, experiences as a “champion” of culture, comfort in communicating bottom-up as well as top-down, and the ability to provide a positive and supportive environment.

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2. Storytelling

You’ll often hear in the business world that storytelling is an art that connects people to a goal or a solution. A master storyteller uses feedback, surveys, data, and interviews to craft a narrative they are confident presenting and pitching, creates a connection to the work, and demonstrates purpose. Look for skills and experiences like problem-solving, experience pitching new ideas or ideas that challenge the status quo, presenting ideas to groups that may disagree with the narrative, the ability to ask the right questions to get the facts, an openness to testing and potentially failing, and a demonstration of persistence.

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3. Strategic planning

A trailblazer can establish an effective business strategy that gets buy-in and inspires the team. But beyond being a source of positivity for change, a trailblazer-type employee can take this shared vision of the future to foster constructive and empowering conversations with colleagues. Look for skills and experiences that demonstrate an understanding of business value, persuasiveness with an ability to define and defend their ideas, and someone who sees opportunities in the challenges.

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4. Lifelong learner

As someone who takes risks and disrupts the status quo, a trailblazer will always seek to learn new things and improve their skill set. They want to grow their knowledge base, and they want that for their team as well. Someone who embraces lifelong learning rather than being fixated on being “the expert” promotes the personal and professional growth that leads naturally to innovation and technology spaces. Look for skills and experiences that demonstrate curiosity, critical thinking, willingness to ask questions and seek others’ feedback and knowledge, and initiative to improve current skill sets.

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5. Evangelizer

More than just a leader, a trailblazer can actively influence a company's culture. These are your networkers with a message. As a champion of effective communication, they are best at leading adoption efforts of new practices, plans, and strategies for cross-functional groups in an organization. They excel at internal networking and strive to build bridges between different groups while challenging and shaping ideas, ensuring all ideas are heard and inspiring a collaborative environment. Look for skills and experiences that demonstrate a positive attitude, willingness to bring attention to problems in order to solve for them, an open-minded style of collaboration, and attention to detail to bring the plan to the relevant folks.

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Hiring a trailblazer employee means organizations will need to explore how potential hires approach their successes, how they implement innovative processes, and if they work well under pressure. By targeting traits like expert storytelling, strategic vision, emotional intelligence, lifelong learning, and cultural influence, organizations can ensure that their employees will drive progress and empower those around them. Ultimately, this will help modern technology companies achieve their goals and create innovative differentiation in the marketplace through their main strategic investment -- their people.