If I were to recruit a person, or for that matter, decide his salary, designation etc there is only one simple rule that would decide who is ,in a pool of candidates, the most deserving. Initiative.
Perhaps the best deciding factor for judging between two separate individuals. What happens is that one need not delve into the dilemma the recruiter/employer faces while choosing between 2 given candidates. Initiative is the only contributory factor to understanding the better resource. A more Trained skilled talented employee may lack the initiative to perform, be it any number of reasons ranging from simple pathological sloth to demotivation and lack of form. The employer must understand that in the long run, the number of working hands on the table matter and not the list of qualified persons.
Initiative can be fairly easily assessed for an existing employee. Performance evaluation reports, attendance and punctuality over the stipulated period, Tact and communication skills with subordinates/juniors, attitude and general work ethics and other run of the mill stats and figures. Now using simple statistical data one can determine and compare the level of initiative between two employees. In fact, for two existing employees the simplest, although technically not the most accurate, means to determine initiative is change in performance/efficiency of the team in question. As a bad employee somehow finds its way to make his presence felt in the work output, one neednt delve into great depths to find whether he is indeed"a contributor to the company".

No the real problem arises while judging the Initiative of a New recruit, a trainee or even worse, a fresher. What can the employer use to determine in 15 minutes whether or not to choose one youth over the other?