The seven deadly sins of experience-centric hiring ?? AND what to do instead
Arctic Shores
Helping disruptive TA leaders navigate a new era of recruitment with task-based assessments
10 years ago, Arctic Shores was founded at the same time as forward-thinking talent acquisition teams, especially in Early Careers, were beginning to question the usefulness of the CV.?
There were a staggering seven reasons for this. And they were as true then as they are today. We call these the seven deadly sins of experience-centric hiring ??
1?? Past experience alone has been proven time and time again to be an unreliable predictor of future success –– with a University of Florida study showing no direct correlation between past experience and on the on-the-job performance.
2?? In any role, mindset and learning agility are everything –– if you ask any hiring manager about their best hire, it’s rarely the person with the perfect career history, and more often the person who learned fastest or was an exceptional problem-solver.
3?? CVs often contain inaccurate information –– 85% of employers have caught false information on CVs and almost 60% of people exaggerate their skills, meaning people who look great on paper could disappoint in the room.?
4?? CVs are deeply biased documents ––?with the average CV containing over 150 biases ––?holding candidates from under-represented groups back, and leading to hiring managers overlooking high quality, high potential candidates.?
5?? Even 10 years ago, we were at the beginning of a skills shortage. And it continues to get worse — many TA teams are battling the fact that a lot of the time, there aren’t enough people with the right skills to go around. The AI-enabled workplace and a sharp rise in demand for green jobs are only going to accelerate this problem .??
6?? The shelf life of a skill is shrinking all the time ––?according to Boston Consulting Group , the average shelf life of many skills is just 2.5 years. And in an AI-enabled world of work, we can expect that to shrink even further.??
7?? Most importantly? — CV-based sifting takes TA teams 100s of hours and adds headcount. We’re hearing of teams of 3 sifting upwards of 45,000 applications for a handful of roles thanks to the AI-enabled candidate… forcing TA teams into spending time on menial activities that don’t add true value instead of being able to really spend time on making improvements to their function.
Given these challenges, pioneering TA leaders are moving away from experience-centric hiring — a method closely linked to CV-based sifting (i.e. sifting candidates on their prior experience) –– and towards skills-based hiring (i.e. selecting candidates on their skills, not just their experience).?
But for the last couple of years, one major problem has emerged with this approach.?
Many skills-based hiring processes are failing because they only evaluate candidates based on their current skills –– not their ability to acquire new ones.?
And in an AI-enabled workplace, where skills are decaying rapidly, this presents a major challenge.?
At Arctic Shores, we believe an effective skills-based hiring process places as much importance (or sometimes more) on a candidate’s ability to develop and acquire new skills, as much as their current skills.
A new body of research has now emerged which suggests that a candidates’ ability to adapt, grow, and learn new skills – rather than their current skills – is most predictive of their potential to succeed in the AI era. We call the psychological constructs that enable people to do this, Skill-enablers?.
Sifting candidates based on their Skill-enablers? helps TA teams solve two problems:?
??It simplifies the transition away from experience-centric hiring speeds up the transition to skills-based hiring –– because if you know candidates have the capaiblty to develop new skills, you don’t need to spend years mapping your recruitment process to a complex skills-taxonomy before you can get started
??It improves candidate quality and retention ––?helping you identify candidates who will thrive in the AI-enabled workplace and be able to go the distance in an environment where role requirements are constantly changing and new skills need to be picked up quickly?
How practically do you sift for Skill-enablers??
As of now, all Arctic Shores customers can use our Task-based Assessment to measure candidates’ Skill-enablers?.
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If you’re interested in learning more about them –– how they work, the science behind them, and which roles they do and don’t apply to...
You’ll want to read our ultimate companion guide ––?everything you need to know about Skill-enablers here ??
EVENT INVITATION: Feeling overwhelmed by 1000s of AI-generated applications and not sure what to do about it? You'll want to join our next event
We'll be joined by Shoosmiths ' Samantha Hope , Martyn Redstone , Robert Newry , and hosted by Hung Lee . Together, they'll unpack...
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?? What this means for how we need to change how we select in an efficient, effective, and equitable way
?? Practical advice from experts who have successfully adapted to the AI-enabled candidate, covering quick-wins and longer-term strategies
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