Post-pandemic, there are around one million UK job vacancies to be filled. So why are employers having difficulty filling them?
Takeaway doesn’t always hit the spot. Sometimes, we need to think outside of the takeaway box, get creative in the kitchen, introduce new ingredients and come up with new flavour combinations.
And it’s the same with people. To fuel our teams most efficiently, we need variety, fresh people, different ideas and approaches, new combinations…
And here is the irony of the current ‘skills shortage’ that we keep hearing about. There are plenty of innately talented candidates out there as a result of UK unemployment levels increasing due to the effects of a global pandemic. They may just not be a ‘ready made’ option.
What if we start deliberately selecting our takeaway, or our ingredients, from new sources - so we aren’t always buying from the same place? We are much more likely to find talented people who think and work differently if we open our eyes to talent of all races, ages, religions, genders, socio economic groups, abilities and so on. Encouraging inclusivity and diversity in the workplace isn’t just a way to score points - it’s a way to score talent.
Let’s use the pandemic and Brexit, and the challenges they have thrown at us, to shake up recruitment.
It’s time to stop clicking our fingers and expecting the perfect candidate to be served to our door.
We need to adapt, to get creative, to take some risks and learn new skills to become real talent spotters, not just place a repeat order…
How?
1. Get to know yourself first. Delve into the assumptions you might hold about how a job should be done. Know your limitations and seek out people who think differently to broaden your hiring perspectives. Embrace your unconscious biases and question how valid your choices really are…
2. Strip the role back. What are the essential building blocks of decision making, lived and learnt experiences, approaches that the person doing the role will need? Rather than a tick box exercise, think about the innate transferable skills needed to do the job. Make sure these are what you are asking for in your job profile, rather than going with the default menu of listing learnt skills, qualifications, education, experience.
3. Get to know your candidates (not their CVs). Instead of asking for a CV, could you give applicants a task to do? A list of skills and experience doesn’t prove anything… why not find out right from the get-go whether they can do the job you need them to do?
Supply and demand is at an all time high - with UK unemployment levels increased due to the effects of the global pandemic that is ongoing. And there are heaps of roles to fill, with over a million job vacancies in the UK this summer (double the amount of vacancies during the same time last year according to statistics from statista.com). So how can your organisation stand out from the crowd, and recruit the best?
The key to hiring the right people right now, is knowing how to bridge the gap between jobs and candidates - and use a more sustainable approach to recruitment.
Employers need to stop approaching recruitment as a tick box exercise and focus their attention on hiring people with those secret ingredients - potential and talent. This new approach will open up an entirely new pool of candidates. Helping Cambridge companies (and beyond) to attract, recruit and retain the right people.