A Better Hiring Strategy for Hard-to-Find Talent

10/25/2017

When you need to hire for an in-demand role like Internal Auditor, Web Developer, or Creative Director, does it turn into a long and difficult process that doesn’t even result in the best candidates? You’re not alone. Today, a skills shortage affecting the Finance, IT, and Creative fields is no passing trend but a new normal that cannot be ignored. Regardless of your industry, continuing with the same hiring strategy will only achieve the same subpar results. It’s time to adopt a new recruiting approach that can increase your talent pool while placing the best candidates into your open roles.

Consider a Broader Group of Candidates
Focusing on too small a pool of candidates often holds hiring strategies back. For any open role, you have an ideal list of skills and requirements that you’re looking for, but the truth is nobody will 100% meet them. Even if that “perfect” candidate is somewhere out there, they are surely employed elsewhere and difficult to locate. Better recruiting means not just looking for someone with those exact skills, but looking for those with adjacent skills. You don’t want to look for the perfect candidate right now, but someone who can become the perfect candidate over time.

For example, if you need to hire a Tax Accountant it won’t be easy, as the position is heavily in demand. Instead of looking for a needle in the haystack by only interviewing previous Tax Accountants, consider great general Accountants that are interested in going into tax. In other words, you need to hire for talent, not for an exact skill set. The right candidate is the one that is fantastic at 80% of the required skills, and can adapt by learning the rest. With the rapid pace that technology evolves many skills can quickly become obsolete, so flexible and genuinely-talented candidates are the ones that will make the best employees.

Adapt Your Role Requirements
In order to attract a broader group of the right candidates, make your job listings less rigid. If you’re hiring for a Copy Editor and you require previous experience in that exact role, you’ll miss out on extremely talented Copywriters with impeccable editing skills. The goal isn’t to settle for a B or C caliber Copy Editor, but rather find an A caliber professional who can turn into an A caliber Copy Editor. Opening up role requirements opens the door for more A caliber professionals to interview for your role.

This concept is not groundbreaking, but it’s little used because of the hiring habits most businesses fall into. Consider the same concept in sports. When a high school football team has a wide receiver that is really fast on the field, this athlete is often recruited by the track and field coach to run the 40-yard dash. Likewise, that coach may talk to the quarterback with a really strong arm about learning to throw javelin. In either case, that football player already has the athletic foundation for success. With a little bit of training, they can learn to hone their talents into a new skill. The same thing is possible in the business world, as some of the most in-demand skills can be trained if a candidate already has adjacent skills under their belt.

Focus on Training and Development
The best talent for your open role will bring some related knowledge to the table, but most importantly, they are trainable. Throughout the screening and interview process, you want to determine if they’ll be able to learn the new skills that you’ll ultimately need in the role. Best yet, this potential for training will actually help attract great candidates. 70% of employees are dissatisfied with growth opportunities at their current company and cite lack of career opportunities as the #1 reason for leaving an organization. Once you recruit and bring a strong candidate on board, there are many ways to train them deeper into their role:

On-the job training will likely be the primary method for most roles. Co-workers that are doing the same job can show a new hire the ropes on real projects and be readily available for questions. This is a common practice, especially for generational knowledge transfer between retiring Baby Boomers and younger generations.
Depending on the type of role, a certification may be all it takes to instill a new skill into your employee. If a certification doesn’t exist, it’s likely a few higher education classes can help fill in gaps. In certain cases these can be taken a la carte without committing to a full degree.
Send them to an industry conference or event. A weekend conference won’t totally train someone in a hard skill, but can help instill higher-level concepts and best practices, including an understanding of how they should be planning, prioritizing, and communicating in their new role.

A Better Hiring Strategy
The road to a better hiring strategy and improved recruiting results isn’t easy, but the effort and investment put into shifting your mentality will be worth it when you have a higher caliber of talent filling your roles. And at the end of the day, you’re not alone. The right staffing partner can be an expert to rely on, handpicking the best candidates that can be perfectly molded to any position you need.

Looking for the easiest way to land the best Finance, IT, or Creative talent? Contact us today.

Darrell Smith

Darrell Smith has been the CEO of Highmark since 2005 and has over 20 years of experience in the Finance & Accounting staffing industry.

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