Danny Meyer considers hiring to be among the most important parts of his job.

Meyer, 67, has spent the last 40 years as a restaurant executive. He opened his first restaurant in 1985, founded burger chain Shake Shack in 2004 and launched several other eateries and bars as founder and executive chairman of New York-based restaurant group Union Square Hospitality Group.

When he brings on new workers — from CFOs to dishwashers — he looks for a specific set of traits above all others. "I really don't give a damn what your IQ is," Meyer said at the Qualtrics X4 Summit on March 19. "We are hiring for HQ [hospitality quotient] ... What an IQ basically says is one's aptitude for learning. What HQ is, is the degree to which someone is happier themselves when they provide happiness for someone else."

Meyer gauges if someone has a high hospitality quotient by whether they possess six "emotional skills" that are "always present at a high level," he said:

• Integrity
• Optimism
• Intellectual curiosity
• Work ethic
• Empathy
• Self-awareness

Integrity is Meyer's most important emotional skill, because it shows that you have the "judgment to do the right thing, even if it isn't in your best interest," he said.

Similarly, Meyer highlighted optimism as a particularly good metric for hiring. "People who are optimistic actually believe that their actions can make someone else's life better. So that's a really good starting place," said Meyer, adding that ideal employees are "learn-it-alls," not "know-it-alls." 

Someone with all six emotional skills cares about doing their job to the best of their abilities, can put themselves in another person's shoes and understand what they need, and can still be a team player when they're having a bad day, said Meyer.

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Soft skills are increasingly important in nearly every modern workforce, many experts say — particularly in the age of artificial intelligence. Businesspeople like billionaire Mark Cuban to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy often preach their value.

"We need these, what we call 'human skills' [such as] creativity, collaboration, resilience, agility," Till Leopold, a lead author on the World Economic Forum's 2025 Future of Jobs Report, told CNBC Make It in February.

Finding people who excel at such soft skills, however, is easier said than done, according to Meyer.

If you've ever been given feedback that you lack self-awareness, for example, you might have to do some intentional self-interrogation. Ask your friends and yourself questions like, "What am I good at? What conditions do I work best in? What fulfills me the most?" neuroscientist Juliette Han recommended in June 2023.

People who aren't particularly optimistic can build that skill through gratitude journaling, a practice Hinge CEO Justin McLeod uses in his more frustrating moments, he said on an episode of LinkedIn's "This is Working" podcast that aired on March 13.

"If I'm feeling down or resentful or whatever, I always find that just writing out a list of 10 things that I'm grateful for is a way to instantly turn around my world view," McLeod said.

Soft skills might "sound like second grade stuff" on the surface, but bosses who intentionally hire candidates who possess them will benefit greatly, Meyer added. "These are people who, in addition to being really good at the technical thing they were hired to do, whatever that job is, they're amazing at going over and beyond and doing things that were unexpected."

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