In our podcasts about interviewing and recruiting, we say hiring managers will take a candidate with less skill and more good attitude over a candidate with more skill and more bad attitudes. Whilst ‘attitude’ is not behavioral, we all know what it means. In an article in Recruiter magazine, the head of recruitment at East Sussex council gives another version of this. He says: you can’t always choose the job that you have but you can choose the attitude you apply.

In what’s now being called ‘the great recession’ many of us have had to stay in jobs that we’ve outgrown or take jobs that are beneath us in order to continue to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. It’s easy to slip into mediocrity, to do the bare minimum when we don’t feel passionate about what we’re doing. However, psychologists say that attitude comes first. You can decide to be passionate about what you’re doing – even if it’s cleaning tables at Starbucks, and in setting yourself new standards and goals, your enthusiasm will rise.

Many people have been attributed this quote: If I was going to be a garbage collector, I’d be the best garbage collector in the world. Whatever you’re doing today, be the best at it that you can be.

http://www.recruiter.co.uk/leatham-green/1007229.article