Mastering the Dark Art of Transferable Skills

Leaving aside the odd jobs I had as a teenager, I have now worked for nine different companies. Although these have mostly been within the Financial Services sector, the cultures have differed wildly. Some have been really creative and fast paced whilst others more corporate and hierarchical. Most of my roles have been within Recruitment so over the years I can conservatively say that I have rubbed shoulders with a few thousand hiring managers. It’s what keeps the job fun; some are very direct characters, others are more relaxed. Some want to see thirty profiles before making a decision, others are happy with one or two. Learning to read hiring managers is almost as important as understanding candidate capabilities. It's become easier but there are still many different personalities to navigate! On reflection there is one unifying factor and that is that all hiring managers feel that their vacancy is unique. The special way that they do things is critical to the team’s success and is the “secret sauce” that they want me to identify and present back to them in candidate shortlists.

It's easy to dismiss this as human ego in full flourish but it’s true that we are all different and I wouldn’t want to begin to suggest otherwise. After all, the nuances are what make a craft, trade, or product unique. It’s the delightful ladies who routinely tease me for having the same lunch every day who keep me trotting back to the Cannon Street branch of Abokado rather than the one at Blackfriars.  The atmosphere in my local corner shop also means I happily pay eye-watering sums for milk close to its sell by date rather than stop at the Lidl that I cycle past twice a day. However, when it comes to recruiting how special are any of us? Why do we feel this need to show how unique our jobs are?

Do we like to separate ourselves from “others” because so much of our identity is centered around what we do for a living? Perhaps this is why, to some extent, we are all guilty of feeling that certain details are essential to the success or failure of what is normally a relatively generic role. Don’t get me wrong, as I have highlighted, it’s the differences that makes life special. Without artistic expression we may as well just roll in the robots today, but it’s also disappointing when I regularly see hiring managers pull up the drawbridge rather than lowering it for potential new recruits who are from different industries, or who have slightly mismatched skill sets. Just as Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk, learnt on the job, so can more people than we would imagine. I’m not suggesting that we fill a Portfolio Manager post with someone who knows nothing about Finance, but the Java developer who has created amazing things at Jaguar Land Rover could be a great asset to a new industry. Similarly, the HR Administrator who needs a new challenge could do a fantastic job within teams such as Risk, Marketing, or IT Administration. If we all thought a little more laterally before type-casting a profile we’d make great steps towards increasing diversity of thought in the workplace ,which we know is a great way of increasing a company’s performance. 

I have been pondering this scenario a little more than usual lately given the appetite within Investment Management to drive change through increasing diversity. It’s not without irony that I have noticed how so many people, who are genuinely committed to the cause, are inflexible in terms of so called “mandatory requirements”. Why do we look for candidates with “internships” when hiring graduates? The person who listed a newspaper round would get my vote every day (not just because they are able to get up at the crack of dawn!) but because they understand what hard work is and have successfully balanced school with work responsibilities. To narrow down applicants and I’m not suggesting we discount the unicorns who have exceptional experience by the time they are twenty one, but in reality not everyone knows how to play the CV game at eighteen, especially those from underprivileged backgrounds.

Finally, I wonder how much more fulfilling a career may be with the freedom to move about a bit more. The right candidate will do whatever it takes to succeed at work and so the extra time spent training someone is likely to be rewarded with a fresh perspective as well as with a hunger to succeed. A CV is only a piece of paper which is either well, or badly, written. It’s my job to ensure that a hiring manager identifies a candidate that they are truly excited by, not just at the point of offer, but 12 months down the line.  When we are doing a job that we love, rather than what our CV may indicate we are best suited to, we are more likely to perform well. Managers always want a “low risk” hire, but how do we measure risk? Is a few months of training that cumbersome when it is likely to result in an engaged, loyal, and incentivised employee? Isn’t this less risky than hiring someone who may be bored rigid in six months? I would encourage everyone to think about the power of transferable skills. This is how we are going to inject diversity of every possible type into the Investment Management Industry as well as encourage a culture of inclusion and creativity.