Of all the things you will do at work in the next six months, hiring the right people will be the most important. Take your time and hire the right person. That person will dramatically affect the future success or failure of your career.

When you hire someone, you are hiring his or her behaviors. People really don't change as much as we think they are going to. The way a person has consistently acted over the past five years is going to be how he or she will consistently act in your company after you have hired him/her. Are the person's behaviors what you want in your business?

If you think that values and behaviors are just fluff, then let me put it this way. Imagine you are not allowed to fire this new hire for at least three years. Now imagine that everyone knows that you hired the person. Consequently, every person who interacts with your new hire is going to see this person's behaviors as a representative of you. Are you comfortable having this person whom you are about to hire, represent you to everyone in your company and to every supplier and every customer? Are the values, which this person demonstrates in alignment with the values that you believe in?

Regardless of how technically strong or experienced this person is, if you are not ok having him or her represent you to other people then I suggest you don't hire the person. Right now there are an incredible number of talented people looking for good jobs. You should always be choosy in who you hire, but now you can be even more selective about who you put on your team.

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