Most hiring processes are built around skills. HR teams and managers evaluate a candidate’s certifications, years of experience, and the bullet points on their resume.
And yes, skills absolutely matter. Obviously, you need to hire someone capable of doing the job. However, skills alone don’t ultimately determine whether someone will be a good fit.
What truly sets high-performing teams apart is behavior: how people communicate, solve problems, adapt to change, and collaborate under pressure. Skills may get someone hired, but behavior is what drives long-term success, especially in global and remote environments.
Here’s why behavior, not skills, should be the center of your hiring strategy — and how to hire for it fairly across cultures.
Key takeaways:
- There’s no denying that skills matter when it comes to making hiring decisions. However, behavior is often a better predictor of a job candidate’s potential for success.
- When faced with a choice between candidates, one with an open mind and willingness to learn, and one who has the right skills but a closed mindset, it’s better to hire someone with the right attitude. Skills can be taught, but openness can’t.
- Interviewers should use a clear behavioral framework in order to evaluate candidates consistently and fairly.
Skills Can Be Taught, But Behavior Is Stickier
Technical abilities evolve quickly. Tools change, frameworks shift, and most people can upskill with training or coaching. For example, how many people on your team were fluent in AI two years ago, versus today?
On the other hand, behavioral traits — such as curiosity, humility, resilience, and accountability — are more challenging to develop.
If an employee is reliable, collaborative, and eager to learn, you can teach them nearly any skill. However, when someone resists feedback or struggles with teamwork, even exceptional technical knowledge can’t offset the friction.
We sat down with Marianne West, Fractional Head of Talent at Talent Motto, for RemoFirst’s Freedom of Work podcast to get her take on the importance of building a value-led talent philosophy.
“My philosophy around people and talent comes down to mindset and behaviors,” said Marianne. “Fundamentally, I think skills can be taught, but that willingness to learn, that adaptability, the curiosity, that mindset and attitude, that's really difficult to develop and change.”
According to Marianne, behavior is a long-term predictor of performance, growth, and cultural health.
"If we think about skills, it's easy to teach because it's situational, it's task-based, and often with skills, you get feedback immediately, and you can transfer that across different situations.
“However, with behaviors, it's really rooted in your mindset and really depends on lots of other factors that you can't control. People's experiences and the way they're socialized, what values and beliefs they have, that build up those behaviors and essentially habits over time that make it really difficult to untangle.”
How Behavioral Strengths Drive Team Performance
High-performing teams usually aren’t the ones with the fanciest resumes — they’re the ones with strong interpersonal dynamics. Behavior influences everything from communication habits to decision-making and trust-building.
“It really comes back to this idea that we're not just filling roles, we are looking for people who would not only be a great success within the team, but help develop and build the culture of the organization as we move forward,” said Marianne.
Teams with strong interpersonal dynamics tend to:
- Ask questions early and communicate clearly
- Adapt quickly when priorities shift
- Own their work without needing micromanagement
- Resolve conflict with empathy and directness
- Support teammates during crunch periods
These traits aren’t easily spotted on a resume, but they’re what make a team feel aligned and resilient.
“I've hired many people for my own team and other people's teams where I've really focused on behaviors over skills or knowledge, and it's always paid off in ways I hadn't really imagined,” said Marianne. “It's really finding people that bring the right energy, the right mindset, and the right values.”
Behavioral Frameworks That Improve Hiring
When hiring, it's essential to use a clear behavioral framework to help you evaluate candidates consistently and fairly. This also makes it easier to compare across roles, seniority levels, and cultures.
“Don't worry about the candidate's exact experience,” said Marianne. “Look for potential. Because really, the question that you want to stop asking is, ‘Does this person tick the right boxes?’ Instead, ask, ‘Does this person reflect what we stand for and where we're going?’ “
Common behavioral dimensions to be on the lookout for include:
- Curiosity: Do they ask thoughtful questions? How do they respond when they don’t know something?
- Adaptability: How do they handle ambiguous situations or shifting requirements?
- Ownership: Do they take responsibility for outcomes, even when things go wrong?
- Communication: Can they explain complex ideas clearly?
- Collaboration: How do they navigate conflict or differing opinions?
During the interview, some prompts you can use to determine if someone possesses these traits include:
- “Describe a time you had to learn something quickly. What was your process?”
- “Tell me about a moment when a project changed midstream. How did you adjust?”
- “How do you typically respond when you disagree with a teammate?”
- “What’s a habit you’ve intentionally built to improve your work?”
- “Tell me about a failure you’ve had — what did you learn from it?”
Questions like these reveal how someone thinks, not just what tasks they’ve performed at past positions.
How Behavioral Hiring Boosts Culture and Innovation
Teams built on strong behavioral foundations are naturally more innovative. Curiosity drives experimentation. Psychological safety encourages idea sharing. Accountability makes teams more efficient.
And because teammates feel valued for how they work, not just what they produce, behavioral hiring naturally strengthens:
- Team cohesion
- Employee engagement
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Knowledge sharing
- Long-term retention
“Over the last 10 years, I've not always hired people with a talent background, but people who are great with people, love to work with people, and have a really good problem-solving ability, curiosity, and drive to learn,” said Marianne.
A culture that rewards healthy behaviors becomes one where people feel safe contributing, challenging assumptions, and innovating, which further helps drive growth.
Why Behavior Matters Even More on Global Teams
Global hiring introduces more complexity — and more opportunity. However, behaviors don't look identical across cultures and borders, so a thoughtful and inclusive approach is necessary.
Calibrating Behavior and Providing Clarity Across Cultures
It’s easy to assume “professional” means the same thing globally, but different regions can interpret workplace behavior pretty differently:
- Initiative: Some cultures value proactive ownership, while others prefer consensus before taking action.
- Directness: What feels transparent in one culture may be perceived as abrupt in another.
- Eye contact: Common in Western cultures, it’s considered disrespectful in others.
- Pace: Some cultures default to fast decision-making; others value deliberation.
Misinterpreting these behaviors and tendencies can lead to overlooking strong candidates, which is why it's essential to consider a potential hire's culture and background during the evaluation process.
To create a level playing field:
- Offer async or written assessment options for multilingual candidates.
- Use clear, simple language — avoid idioms or slang that create confusion.
- Provide candidates with the option to include examples from any job or context, not just Western corporate environments.
Share interview expectations upfront so no one is forced to guess at cultural norms.
Train Interviewers to Reduce Cross-Cultural Bias
“We know that mindset and growth matter more than just skills, so we design interview processes to dig into how people think, how they learn, and how they take on different challenges,” said Marianne. “That could be anything from how you build assessments to look out for those behaviors, or even the types of interview questions that you might ask in order to get that.”
A globally consistent hiring process requires interviewer calibration across not only time zones and departments, but also cultures and diverse backgrounds. This can be accomplished with:
- Standard scoring rubrics
- Shared definitions of each behavioral trait
- Side-by-side evaluation exercises
- Bias-awareness training
- Regular debriefs to maintain alignment
Without this, teams tend to default to “people who work like me,” instead of “people who will make us better.”
How to Hire for Behavior, Not Just Skills
Ready to tackle your hiring strategy to find the best team players, not just the candidates with the strongest skill set? Here are five tips to get you started.
1. Combine Competency Questions With Real-World Scenarios
Ask candidates to walk through how they’d handle specific challenges your team actually faces to get a sense of how they’d fit in and contribute.
2. Look for Patterns, Not One-Off Moments
If you notice consistency across the stories and examples a candidate shares, it reveals a lot about their natural tendencies.
3. Assess Communication in Multiple Formats
For global roles, consider evaluating candidates based on async written communication, small group conversations, and cross-functional interviews.
4. Balance Skills and Behavior During Scoring
Resist the urge to default to the "tick box" system, which focuses solely on checking if a candidate possesses specific skills. Create a weighted evaluation system so behavior carries as much importance.
5. Don’t Ignore Red Flags
If you get the sense that a job candidate may not have a positive attitude and mindset, don’t overlook it, even if they look good on paper. Skills gaps can be closed quickly. Behavioral gaps usually grow over time.
Behavior Builds Global Teams That Last
No matter where your people are located, behavior is the foundation that keeps a team aligned, resilient, and adaptable. Skills will continue to evolve — but behavior determines how someone learns, collaborates, and grows with your organization.
If you’re expanding and want to build a high-performing distributed team not limited by geography, RemoFirst can help.
We help companies hire talent in 185+ countries around the globe. We manage the essential HR tasks, such as contracts, onboarding, and compliance, while you oversee the day-to-day operations of your team.
Book a demo today to learn more about how we can help you hire the best candidate for the job, no matter where they live.
