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Hiring for Potential

The relevance of soft skills

A candidate’s work experience, CV, and references are still vital for the hiring process. Assessing for future potential does not replace these, it’s just an addition to the list of considerations to make your process vigorous. Hiring for potential enables you to consider candidates beyond what they’ve done, but what they have the potential to do.

If you do not have access to assessment tools, below are our tips to assess for potential in possible candidates.

Hire beyond paper. A candidates CV and work experience could be a filter for consideration. During the interview and screening process, try to get to know the person behind the paper. What life challenges have they faced and how have they overcome it? This will provide insight into their resilience skills.

Assess for resilience. Ask for a time when things went wrong on a project, outside of their control and how they got things back on track – to understand their problem solving skills. Ask about personal challenges they have had to overcome, and what they learned about themselves. Authentic candidates downplay their resilience as it is just common nature. These soft skills are a glimpse of their potential, their adaptability and how they remain productive during uncertainty.

The communicator. Observe their people skills: eye contact, body language, presence. Ask about their values, passion and key strengths as an individual. Ask about a time when they had to motivate themselves or others in a team or personal situation. What worked, what didn’t and how they course corrected. If this is someone who in the future will be managing a team or be in a leadership position, these are important markers of hiring for potential.

While some candidates want to move roles constantly, others want to grow within a company and be challenged in a role. Hiring for potential helps you to identify these markers so that high performers are provided opportunities for growth internally, rather than having to look externally. As an HR manager it offers you the opportunity to get to know candidates beyond paper- so you retain top talent and groom them for future leadership and senior positions.

At Talent Trace, we specialize in hiring for potential and helping companies to find the right fit first time round. Our team are highly experienced at understanding the job to be performed, expectations from potential candidates and the right candidate profile for performing a senior management or Executive role. Our team are specialists at sourcing talent to fill a senior role, first time..