No one ever accomplishes anything worthwhile on their own. That’s why hiring the right people is critical for any company — and especially for a startup or small business with just a handful of employees.

After all, if you’re running a company with 600 employees, then one bad apple can’t spoil the whole bunch… but when yours is a team of, say, four people, hiring the wrong person dramatically impacts the rest of the team.

Even so, hiring isn’t just a science; hiring is also an art. Sometimes the candidate that looks great on paper, and in the interview, turns out to be a horrible fit once the new hire honeymoon is over. And sometimes the seemingly unimpressive candidate turns out to be a superstar.

So, what should you do?

Whenever possible, definitely assess qualifications, skills, experience, etc., but make sure you factor in one other key quality:

Passion.

The reason is simple. New people on the team can almost always be taught new skills. That’s especially true if your business is, at least in part, based on your subject matter expertise. If you’re an outstanding salesperson, you can teach other people to sell.

If you possess a technical skill, you can teach others to perform that skill. If your customer service skills are outstanding, you can teach new employees to treat your customers the way you wish them to be treated.

But what you can’t teach is passion. What you can’t teach is enthusiasm. What you can’t teach is attitude: A great work ethic, a can-do spirit, a willingness to put the team first… those things can’t be taught.

And that’s why those things often matter more than the hard (and sometimes even soft) skills a new employee brings to the table.

Think I’m wrong? Consider the reasons new hires fail. According to a study by Leadership IQ in 2015, very few new hires that failed in the first eighteen months in a job were unsuccessful because of a lack of technical skill. Furthermore, 89% of new hires failed because they had the wrong temperament, were unwilling to be coached and lacked motivation.

In short, where new hire success was concerned, skills didn’t matter.

Passion mattered.

So how can identify candidates who will be passionate and enthusiastic?

In some ways it’s easy. First, look for people who don’t just claim to be passionate about something, anything, but who actually demonstrate that passion.

Ask about hobbies and outside interests, but don’t stop there. Ask what they do. Ask why they do it. Ask how often, and how long. Let their behavior indicate their true involvement, and true passion. After all, it’s easy to say that you love helping other people, but working in a soup kitchen three times every week proves it.

Or ask how they gained the skills they now possess. The candidates who took classes at night, who used online tools on their own time to learn new skills, and the candidates who used side jobs or side hustles to expand their professional horizons. People who take an unconventional (read: hard) path to success do so because they truly care about succeeding.

And that means they’ll care about your company’s success – as long as you help them care about your company’s success.

That, of course, is the final piece of the puzzle. Even people who are incredibly passionate by nature won’t maintain that enthusiasm if they can’t find meaning and purpose in their work.

And that’s why it’s your job to help your employees feel like they are part of something bigger — of a team with a meaningful mission, a true purpose, a goal that matters.

Maybe that sense of meaning comes from making an impact on the lives, whether in a professional or a personal way, of your customers. Maybe that meaning comes from setting out to achieve the seemingly impossible.

Maybe that meaning comes from feeling like their success will go hand-in-hand with your company’s success.

Or, more likely, that meaning will come from all three of those things.

Passionate people are predisposed to caring because caring is the foundation of passion.

Your job is to provide missions, and goals, and roles that allow passionate people to keep on caring, because when they do, they will accomplish things you never imagined possible.

They will help you build a company you love, and that they love working for.