Technical competency is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to candidates, says Dave Carvajal (pictured).
Hiring the wrong person can be an expensive mistake.
Twenty-seven percent of US employers surveyed by CareerBuilder said that just one bad hire cost their company more than $50,000. And Zappos CEO Tony Hseih once estimated his own bad hires cost the company more than $100 million.
All that money goes down the toilet when things don't work out.
Dave Carvajal, CEO of executive headhunting firm "Dave Partners" and author of the upcoming book "Hire Smart from the Start," has placed execs within companies like Warby Parker, Shutterstock, and Tumblr.
He says that, too often, companies looking to make an executive-level hire make one big mistake: they focus too much on technical capabilities.
"Any reasonably intelligent person can look at a résumé and say, 'This is a great CTO,' but that's not the task at hand," Carvajal tells Business Insider. "The task at hand is, 'This a great CTO, for us.' Those two little words, 'for us,' change everything."
In order to better vet candidates, Carvajal says that a business must first get "crystal clear" on its core values and put technical prowess on the back-burner.
Because all of your best candidates should possess the required technical skills and work experience - that goes without saying.
"People are more likely to fail based on fit, not based on technical skills," Carvajal says. "Whether anyone will succeed or fail at any company has everything to do with fit. What we really have to vet for is those core values."
So, instead of getting dazzled by strong résumés or focusing all your energy on assessing a candidate's skills, make sure you're truly determining whether or not their goals are in line with those of your company.
In the end, that's a better predictor of whether they'll succeed at your company.