How to recognize and select on potential?
Marilyn Burgersdijk
Leader in Talent, People & Culture, Organizational Development; Empowering Women towards Transformational Leadership
Still many organizations base their Recruitment and Talent Acquisition activities on past experience and delivered results of a candidate. But why is it that people who have performed well in the past, not necessarily succeed in a new company or role? Or how can it be that someone without seemingly the right competences, proves to be very successful in a new job?
In today’s and tomorrow's world organizations change fast, disruptive innovations and new business models arise, requiring people’s flexibility and adaptability. A different skillset becomes key in performing on high level. Knowledge comes from the past, so it is safe and probably out of date. Experience is built from solutions to old situations and problems. The old situations are probably different from the present ones, so that old solutions will have to be bent to fit new problems and if you've got experience, you'll probibly use it..
For Recruiters and Hiring Managers it is becoming more difficult to predict future behavior and performance of candidates. The more important it is to look at peoples potential: a strong motivation to reach challenging goals with the team, resilience, adaptability and grit. Where I see grit as a mix of passion, perseverence and self discipline that keeps us moving forward and help us overcome obstacles. Grit isn't born, it is developed and it gives the ability to understand and solve tomorrows and next week’s dilemmas. Intelligence and experience do matter, however the focus should be on personality, mindset, learning ability and drive.
How to select on potential? Recognizing and selecting on potential is far more difficult than selecting on knowledge, experience and past results. It is not how good you are, it's how good you want to be. These criteria will help you recognize highly talented people, look for:
- Positive, growth mindset, energy and self-motivation
- Authenticity and creativity
- Ability to learn
- Resilience and grit
- Having the skill to reduce complexity
- Knowing how to set ambitious yet realistic goals and the ability to execute
- Decisiveness
- Confidence
- Solution focused
Do you like to zoom in on this subject or like to know more? Please contact me on [email protected]
Leader in Talent, People & Culture, Organizational Development; Empowering Women towards Transformational Leadership
7 年it is not possible to really get to know a candidate in a single interview, let alone just screening a cv - that is why it is so important to set up a structured interview process with different focus area's, and add tools if needed.
Business Development Industrial IoT
7 年The best thing a recruiter can do is to invest in a long term relationship with a (potential) candidate. This is in my eyes the only way to distinct yourself from the mass and we all know that there are a lot of cowboys within the recruitment domain.