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Looking past qualifications or experiences and recognising personality, motivation, and soft skills can help bring people into an organisation who will complement your work culture.
Collar Group chief executive Ephram Stephenson discussed why this concept is so important to his company.
“Culture is key, right? We’ve got a very clear policy in place where no one person is bigger than this business. And what I mean by that [is] there’s nothing in this business that any of the leaders would ever ask anyone to do that they wouldn’t be willing to do themselves. So, I think that collaboration and that cohesiveness of obviously the team where everyone feels appreciated, everyone actually has a voice,” explained Mr Stephenson.
“That cohesiveness is what sets us apart. We’ve turned that into being a really big competitive advantage for our organisation where [from] the initial phone screen to a face-to-face interview, we make sure that the values of our business really resonate with the candidates.”
Mr Stephenson said that someone who is the right fit for a role is more important than qualifications.
“It comes back down to my background and my history. I don’t have any formal qualifications. I was working from the age of 13 and [had] three jobs at the age of 16. And I always kind of look back on the leaders or my peers at the time, who gave me my first opportunity, you know, they did that based on personality, drive, and enthusiasm.”
“There may be additional training that is required. But ultimately, if you’ve got somebody with the right ethos, the right work ethic, the rest is definitely teachable,” he said.
Looking beyond the skills, qualifications, and experiences may be a great way to secure great talent that can often be overlooked elsewhere, especially during talent shortages where solid employees are hard to come by.
Mr Stephenson commented: “Everyone’s tapping into the same talent pool of individuals. I think companies and business leaders are a little bit naive if they’re not willing to look at other alternatives or other skill sets.”
“Whether that’s bringing in grey nomads, whether that’s looking at graduates, whether that’s looking at return-to-work mums or dads. We’ve got a number of people in our business who work part-time; they might only work Saturday and Sunday because, during the week, they’re a stay-at-home mum or dad.”
“We’re not necessarily just focusing on a Monday-to-Friday kind of individual. If they’ve got the right skill set, and they’ve got the right attitude, and obviously, they’re passionate about what they do, then we can certainly train them and mould them into an opportunity in our business.”
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The practice of actively seeking, locating, and employing people for a certain position or career in a corporation is known as recruitment.
Jack Campbell
Jack is the editor at HR Leader.
