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[Swonnrr]

Depends of what kind of fort I go for.

If I go for a 20-40max dwarves, I care a lot about them, and try to give them things that they will like and be efficient with.

If I go for a 200 dwarves hive... "Welcome number 4-2-23. Here. Get a stone, get a hammer, and go make stuffs."

[PDF urist master]

i didn't even know you could do that, and I've been playing for about a year now.

[Kumil]

Preferences are more relevant if you want to make certain goods and take advantage of moods.

[Baffler]

Mine is an egalitarian embark. The person on top is always the miner, followed by the woodcutter/carpenter, mason, mechanic/stonecrafter, grower/brewer, grower/butcher/tanner, and finally the diagnoser/architect.

[MrWiggles]

I look for two best work ethic dorfs. And I look for the best empathic dorf.. The one thats the most empathic, and good work ethic gets to be the doctor, while other gets to be the Leader.

After that, it generally doesn't matter what their personality is, as you have so many doing similar jobs, that it becames quite an anal experience to see the difference.

Though, if, when you start your next game, make two of your dorfs miners, at zero skill. One of them will reach Miner first. That one will generally have better work ethic and or better stamina thingy.

[Berserkenstein]

I try to get high agility, strength preferably with bravery or likes to brawl for a militia dwarf.

Then agility and analytical ability or a preference for a common stone like granite/gabbro/orthoclase/microcline etc for a mason/mech/building designer.

Any dwarf that likes beds, bins, or spiked balls gets to be my carpenter.

Steel/bronze/iron preference and armor or weapon becomes armor/weaponsmith, or silver/bronze/copper pref and hammers or maces.

Rope reed or pig tails gets to be a weaver/clothier.

Pretty much I prioritize agility on important jobs that require a lot of travel like mason/military dwarves, I used to try and get a high agility wood cutter but the new trees that give tons of wood makes that unnecessary.

Once I get that stuff sorted out, I look for dwarves with good industry preferences and try to capitalize on that.

[Splint]

These are my soldiers. I tend to screen migrants to be added to existing units or start new ones over time. Skill with a melee weapon and a historical career as a hunter/wanderer/scout (that is potentially large kill lists from worldgen,) automatically gets them earmarked for the military no matter what.

Personality: Bravery (or only a slight lack thereof,) Sense of Duty, Likes to Pick Fights, Adventurous
Physical: Willpower, Endurance, Agility, with Strength as a secondary since it doesn't matter as much for edged weapons.
Personal beliefs/Dreams: Exercising power over others, Values chaos/war over Peace, Dreams of mastering a skill <- These last two are preferred attributes, as they tend to be religious in thier pursuit of mastery of arms and easily fulfill thier dream of skill mastery.

Skilled workers tend to be based heavily on what skills they already posses and what needs doing, along with thier work ethic and preferences (someone with high endurance, a love of silver, gold, copper, or bronze, and a sense of duty is preferred to be making my crafts or swords than that jackass who likes sparrow bone and tapir leather and has a lazy streak.) For example, someone who likes shields will end up a carpenter, as I tend to always make my shields out of wood to save on metal and weight, and I prize skilled leatherworkers because as of late I've been eschewing heavy armor.

Creativity/Intellectualism and valuing art and its creation are bonuses but not strictly needed, due to the higher quality of goods such dorfs produce, while those who don't give a damn about art are going to end up farmhands, haulers, construction workers, or soldiers in all likelihood, unless they arrive with exceptional skill in a crafts field.

[King Mir]

I do. Preferences matter for carpenters, masons, and stonecrafters. Empathy for CMD. Endurance for mining and masons, because those are important jobs that never run out of work (I don't know if it actually matters I just do as a differentiating factor). Strength for masons and stone crafters, because they haul rock. Creativity for stonecrafters to make good crafts, but usually any stone crafters are determined by preferences.

It's also nice when the miners dream of mastering a skill, and the masons and stone crafters dream of crafting a masterwork, but I haven't been using that yet.

[Psieye]

I screen my dwarves a lot early on, then less as my population grows (i.e. jobs get filled). Preferences for when I want as many masterworks of a given item as possible.

[Panando]

I always check attributes for military dwarves, both embark and immigrants (typically 2 of the starting seven, and about 1/4 of immigrants become career military). I rank agility as the most important attribute, followed by strength, mightiness and slowness to tire. Toughness and willpower also matter, but not nearly so much - they only matter once a dwarf has already taken damage, and through training, body armour and agility I try and avoid that happening in the first place.

I will make agile but weak dwarves military, and issue them with slicing weapons. I believe that mighty and strong indicates a blunt weapon user (they will do fine with slicing weapons too, but weak dwarves wont do well with blunt weapons).

The most generally useful quality seems to be 'slow to tire', but it is useful for both military and civilian. For a military dwarf you escape the 'on break' tendency of lazy dwarves, but they will easily pass out from exhaustion during battle, which can be pretty fatal, so slow to tire is a good quality for military dwarves. But it's also a great quality for civilians, I especially like my miners to have the slow to tire quality.

[LMeire]

Only for miners, a strong miner digs through rock faster than an average strength miner.

[krisslanza]

Just for military purposes really. I'll skim the starting 7, see which ones have the best potential to be soldiers, and typically make 2 of them with some amount of military training.

The other 5 just fill the other roles as needed. Though I do try to match them as best I can - like I'll make the 'leader' whichever has the best attributes/personality for it.

[Tacomagic]

I typically only check those things when I'm starting to hand out candy equipment.

[StumpytheOzzie]

Similar to the above. I look for the best armoursmith and cook. The rest don't matter so much.

[Iapetus]

I generally check for artefact-appropriate preferences, both at embark and when migrants arrive.

Dwarves with a preference for leg, head or body armour get a point in armorsmithing, and then usually assigned non-moodable skills as their primary labour.  (Not those that like gauntlets or boots though - I don't want odd diamond-encrusted artefact boots lying around my fortress).

Likewise, dwarves with weapons I intend to use (including picks) get a point in weaponsmithing, and those that like bolts get either metalcrafting or woodcrafting.

Those that like furniture of some kind get masonry or carpentry (although at embark I'll make strong dwarves my masons as priority).