Employer / Recruiter, while hiring you need to hire the best-possible candidate to take your team to the next level.

To make better hiring decisions, here are five important factors to think about when making a hiring decision.

1. EXPERIENCE

Experience is an important factor to consider when you’re hiring. If candidates have shown success in similar jobs, they’ll probably be ready to replicate that success at your company. They have a proven track record of success.

When you need to choose from a candidate with experience and one without, it often is sensible to settle on the previous. This is especially true if you don’t have the budget or time to train new employees.

Of course, experience isn’t everything. It’s not enough to only hire the person who’s most experienced on paper. Make sure to think about the experience, but don’t prioritize it over everything else.

2. POTENTIAL

When you’re interviewing candidates, you may encounter some people who seem promising, but don’t have much of a track record. They may be recent university graduates or people with only a couple of years of on-the-job experience.

Sometimes, you’ll decide to take a chance on a newer engineer. For example, you may interview engineers who graduated at the top of their class from an accredited university. While those candidates haven’t proven themselves at work yet, they need obvious potential. On your team, these candidates could grow into top performers.

3. HARD SKILLS

Hard skills are measurable, easy-to-define skills that applicants have learned at college or in past jobs. When you’re hiring engineers, you can’t ignore hard skills. If candidates don’t have the proper skills, it won’t be possible for them to try to do the work without training.

4. SOFT SKILLS

While hard skills are essential, you can’t afford to ditch soft skills. Soft skills are harder to live with and they’re often thought of as personality traits. For example, communication skills, work ethic, and being a team player are soft skills.

Candidates could have impressive hard skills, but if they don’t have the proper soft skills, they won’t succeed on your team.

5. CULTURAL FIT

Company culture refers to a company’s personality. Every company has its own culture. For example, some companies have a culture of working late to form sure everything gets done. Other companies have a culture of leaving at 5 p.m. on the dot. Some companies have a culture of teamwork and socializing with coworkers. At other companies, employees work individually most of the time.

Whatever your culture is, you’ve got to believe how candidates will slot in. When employees are an honest cultural fit, they’ll be happier at work, which helps reduce turnover. Be sure to ask questions on cultural fit during interviews.