Get around the current skills shortage by recruiting for transferrable skills and investing in rethinking your current recruitment process – find hidden talent for your hard-to-fill roles.
Almost every day, we hear about skills shortages and the difficulty of recruiting people in the current market. As professional recruiters we can tell you that this shortage is real – it’s really challenging currently to find good people. These are our top five tips on how to potentially make it easier for you if you have a vacancy that needs to be filled.
- Don’t just focus on the skills required for the vacancy unless, of course, particular technical skills are required in which case you have to! Wherever possible, focus on soft skills you want over practical skills required for the vacancy, eg. strong work ethic, emotional intelligence, communication skills, critical thinking, teamwork, motivation, and resilience.
- Look at industries where people are likely to have transferrable skills that you can use in your organisation, eg people who have worked in commercial recruitment are likely to have the sales and communication skills to be able to transfer to working with participants in the employment services sector. Give thought to how you can target these potential candidates and how you are going to attract them. A recent LinkedIn survey revealed that 52% of prospective jobseekers wouldn’t accept a job offer if they didn’t know a company’s mission, values or purpose.
- A lot of time and effort needs to be put into the interview process if you are looking to employ people who haven’t worked in your industry before. Make sure that interview questions will encourage candidates to talk about the approach and attitude they have taken or would take to given situations.
- Be brave and take a risk on someone. By thinking about the above three
- Revisit your induction programme and be prepared to put serious effort into training people who are making the transition from another sector into yours. This is more difficult if people are working remotely as the best way to learn is often by shadowing someone who is doing the job they are moving into. Y
As recruiters with many years’ experience, we would suggest that as everything else has been thrown up in the air in the workplace because of the pandemic (and we have a very real shortage of good people), now is the time to rethink who you recruit.
Traditionally, you may well have rolled out an established job description so as not reinvent the wheel, but with the wheel now spinning in a very different way, revisiting what and who is required in a role seems sensible.
If you want professional advice when recruiting contact @Samantha Smith at Parkhouse Bell. Parkhouse Bell is an executive search and recruitment company specialising in the employment services, vocational education, community and disability services sectors.
