Why is “attitude” often overlooked in favour of experience when hiring?

By Lee Cooper

We hire for experience and fire for attitude. Why not therefore make attitude the basis of our hiring decisions? Clearly experience is the one thing that we can give any candidate coming in to the business. Attitude is one thing that for sure we can't give them.

All of us at some point are guilty of making experience the basis of our selection decisions. By this I refer typically to who the candidate has worked for or the sector they have been employed in. Whilst I understand the need for having easy ways of pre-screening CVs I would go so far as to suggest this is lazy. Is it really risk averse to hire someone who understands our industry language, systems and processes, products or services and indeed customers without considering whether they truly fit with the values, culture, vision and strategy of the organisation?

To make matters worse, us recruiters can be the worst exponents of putting job seekers in to convenient boxes, not least because of the increasingly key words search based recruitment environment in which many now live. This is exacerbated further with the increasing pressure on frontline recruiters in a tough climate to focus on the short term and generate fees based on perceptions of best fit and lowest risk in order that they keep their own jobs.

I genuinely believe employers lose out by making previous experience the basis of the hiring decision. Experience is the one thing as employers we can give the candidate; attitude is the one thing we can't give them. How often as employers do we hire for experience and fire for attitude? Make attitude, chemistry, fit, the intangibles in the recruitment process the basis for hiring and invest heavily in training, development and employee engagement in order that your key staff are entirely aligned and equipped to meet the key objectives of your business. If you can achieve this the impact on the attraction and retention of people who can transform your business will be greatly enhanced. You may well be losing out on a potential superstar but not opening your minds to those from outside your sector.

What now the future of recruitment?

August 18, 2009 by Lee Cooper

Traditional recruitment is undeniably facing a huge number of significant challenges. With advances in technology and in particular the gathering pace of Social Media, the opportunities for employers and employees to engage with an ever widening pool of prospective candidates are enormous. Therefore we might argue that recruiters have an opportunity to continue to evidence value to clients with our ability to cut through the numbers and provide a well thought through, pre-screened shortlist to clients.

Does this happen? From the feedback I receive from customers, increasingly this isn't the case. Technology has seen recruitment become an ever more transactional experience for customers and many recruiters as a result are relinquishing accountability in the process. The contents of a database are unleashed at a customer via email; they do the screening and are then sent a bill for the privilege of doing the work. They are right to question the value in this process.

From a candidate perspective the experience is in many cases equally as poor. Come in, fill out a form and we will find you a job. In principle, commendable and it is this service that we are here to provide. Ever more so in an environment of rapidly rising unemployment. However, shouldn't our raison d'être be to find the right job for the candidate as opposed to attempting to shoe horn them in to a post just simply to generate a fee? I may be accused of looking at life through somewhat rose tinted specs, but too often the major impact a new job has on peoples lives or alternatively a new hire has on a business is overlooked and the need to generate fees takes priority over the needs of candidate and client.

I love the recruitment industry. I love the fact that as a recruiter we change people's lives (and if not careful not always for the better). I love the fact that every candidate that I meet has a unique set of skills, aspirations, talents and personality traits, that every company we meet has a differing culture, vision, set of values and strategies. However unless we recognise as an industry the impact we have on so many through our behaviour the value we can generate for customers will continue to be questioned. We have an important role to play in ensuring the global economy rises out of recession fast through our inability to unearth and deliver talent to the workplace to enable people and businesses to thrive. That focus should be on engendering long term working partnerships based on ensuring best fit for all, not just any fit at all.