The below post was republished with permission from PluggedIN, an automated talent recruitment and matchmaking platform specifically focused on startup companies. PluggedIN was founded by Colleen Liebig, who serves as an Industry Career Specialist & Advisor at Olin, with specialization in entrepreneurship.

“Being thoughtful about hiring is the best way to scale an organization. If you get the right people around the table, it makes all the difference in the world.”
– Matt Mullenweg, Co-founder, WordPress

As famed basketball coach, Red Auerbach said, “You can’t teach height.”

When hiring new employees and building teams, many startup founders look for the “athlete” candidates. Startup companies are a constant work in progress. Roles and responsibilities tend to change on the regular. Founders consider not just where that person is today, but how they adapt as the company changes.

There are intrinsic qualities employers look for that are tough to teach. We recently tuned into a podcast interview with Matt Mullenweg, co-founder at WordPress and founder & CEO at Automattic.

Here are 4 intrinsic qualities he highlights as being most important when it comes to hiring startup talent:

1) Work ethic
2) Taste
3) Integrity
4) Curiosity

If someone has these four traits, there’s a higher likelihood they will be able to rise to whatever the job requires of them.

In addition to these traits, startup matchmaking platform PluggedIN considers these 3 factors when evaluating a candidate:

1) Attitude
2) Aptitude
3) Experience

If you have the right attitude, you’ll gain the ability to do the job and then get the experience you need to grow professionally.