Good to know for future reference

I recently got to participate in an interview process for a number of post-docs. It was quite an eye-opening experience for me to listen to how people evaluated potential new hires.

In addition to the usual evaluation of publications, presentation, and technical ability, the most important questions seemed to be:

1) Is this person a good workhorse vs. an innovator;
2) How much direction they would need in their work (independence in work);
3) How willing would they be to take a tangent direction to benefit the group as a whole (or would they perceive anything deviating from their own plan as a waste of time);
4) How well they would work with the existing team.

I was surprised that a personal fit with the current team was perceived as possibly more important than anything else. Also, depending on the position and its purpose, it would either be perceived as a good thing or a bad thing to hire a "workhorse" that will do the job required vs. come up with the next greatest thing. A phrase that really stuck in my mind was "A good post-doc costs as much as a great post-doc," yet even though not many of the candidates were placed in the "great post-doc" category, the ones whose shortcomings were determined to be manageable (and the hiring boss was willing to manage those) got the job offers.

I wonder where in those categories I would fit in.