Episode: 764

Episode Title: Hire Outside Your Field

Recognizing the fields that have easily transferable skills can save you considerable time in filling open roles. Let’s talk about it, next on The Perna Syndicate.

Ep 764 show:

This is The Perna Syndicate—hello and welcome! As we talked about yesterday, requiring highly specific skills or degrees can prolong your employee search. Recognizing the types of skills that transfer easily from one field to another can help you find qualified applicants—who may bring something totally new to the role. 

If unicorn employees aren’t worth the effort, how do you find the best possible non-unicorn hires for your organization? It starts in the way you interview them. Behavioral interviewing focuses on a candidate’s past experience in order to predict their future behavior. This can drastically reduce the potential of making a bad hire by focusing on the specific attributes that make a person successful.

Try to avoid canned questions like “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Their response isn’t going to tell you if they can plan and prioritize. Plus, many applicants will answer this question in similar ways. Instead, pick questions that help you determine their skill set and keep the core skills you are seeking at the forefront of your mind.

By doing this, you can consider how their previous experience would be transferable to your organization, especially if your candidates are trying to pivot from a different industry. 

We have to let go of the idea that candidates must graduate with a specific degree.  Recognizing which skills may be transferable between fields allows you to hire go-getters who are motivated to master new abilities. There’s a lot to say for hiring outside your field.

Tomorrow on The Perna Syndicate, we’ll sum up our conversation about unicorn employees and share some final thoughts. See you then!