Please, hire for potential, not just shiny CV’s

Any HR professional will confirm that one of the biggest challenges in their job is attracting a strong pool of talent at the top of the recruitment funnel. Everyone would love to have a curated short list of candidates ready to go, from charismatic and knowledgeable entry-level staff to inspiring team leaders and magnetic managers.

So, where do you start?

Step #1: Start at the End

Map out the key traits of the existing team you’re hiring for and you’ll be able to evaluate each new candidate not only for their sparkling credentials and shiny CVs but also for how well they’d fit into the department they’re about to join. Personality and skills fit are important but an interviewee’s potential to develop and learn should be trusted as well. Build simple 2x2 matrix diagrams to quickly evaluate the needed skills and potential:

HR writer Claudio Fernandez-Araoza says that businesses need to, “shift their hiring criteria and focus on potential rather than competency fit.”

He also advises that organizations should prioritize candidates who show potential to, “develop new knowledge and skills to suit constantly evolving circumstances.” In essence, hirers need to loosen their grip on that job specification that is anchored in the past and build a vision of what skills will be needed in the future. Without wanting to be the bearer of bad news, chances are that few people have these future skills yet. So, the race is on to find candidates that are most able and eager to learn.

Step #2: Find your winning ingredients

Get under the skin of the team you’re looking to develop and understand what winning ingredients they possess as a whole. What’s their magic formula? Once you know this, you know precisely what you want to replicate and build upon. What causes friction and weakens productivity? This is what you should seek to eliminate as you work your way through the applications. Please don’t dwell on the university rankings or even prior job experience. Which ingredients lie at the center of your team culture and how do you detect them in a new candidate?

Step #3: Sort Your Priorities

What does your new hire need to achieve in their first week, month, year? Where is your business going in the next two or three years? You should be shortlisting with these objectives in mind, to ensure that you end up with an employee for keeps who will grow and flourish in the direction you wish to evolve.

Step #4: Build Your Brand to keep them coming

Talent acquisition is a lengthy process, but a well-executed recruitment process is an opportunity to roll-out your company values and strengthens your overall branding. In short, it’s another marketing opportunity. Your employment brand is the way your company is perceived by your potential employees as well as your current and former staff.

Top talent consultant Roberta Matuson believes that by refining this facet of your overall marketing strategy, you’ll be “capturing their hearts and minds.” She goes on to advise that “having potential candidates yearn to be a part of what you are doing is priceless.” You don’t need to be Google to have a powerful employment brand. 

So how do you build an employment brand? Easy. You create a workplace people want to be a part of. You make sure your all-star employees want to shout from the rooftops about what a great employer you are, so their high-flying friends want to come and work for you too.

Step #5: Offer Something Different

The cream of the crop – the ones you want to sign on the dotted line - will have other job offers in the pipelines, so make sure what you’re offering is really attractive. Money talks, of course, but there are other ways to reward employees which can make a big difference for little spend. Bear in mind, also, that candidates who go to the highest bidder may not stay the course once a higher bidder emerges.

So, make the most of your assets and think about whether you can make your employees’ lives a bit brighter and their work more rewarding with perks like:

• Opportunities for training and development
• Health and wellness bonuses
• Flexible working options and flexibility in general when it comes to negotiating a contract
• Meals, sports and recreational activities, clubs, other personal services - anything from ironing and dry cleaning services to car valeting, daycare and preferential travel rates.

It’s the little things sometimes which can make all the difference.

Step #6: Outsource Carefully

You might have an HR department in-house and you might use an agency: either way, you need to be sure that the people in charge of your recruitment have an in-depth understanding of your business, what you have to offer and the existing team dynamic.

Bottom line: a killer strategy for recruiting and retaining star players is vital to the continued success of your business. 

Do you want to attract and keep rising or super stars? Act like an all-star coach.