How Hiring Non-Traditional Candidates Can Help Your Organization

A recalibration of hiring methodologies may be just what we need in our highly competitive economy. Companies need to reinvigorate their hiring process to expand their market share. Hiring non-traditional employees could be a good start.

Answer this! How many times have you rejected an application of a candidate whose criteria did not match your requirements without giving it a second thought? If your answer is always, then you are losing out on a high-potential market of candidates and one of the top performers.

Some of the most successful leaders in the world are living examples of -you do not need a college degree or the qualification to excel in your career.

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group of Companies; Elon Musk, founder of Tesla; Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, are some of the most famous personalities whose ideas and candidatures were not received well. And look where they are today.

Consider Potential Over Pedigree!

Being open to candidates who are not the right fit at first glance but assessing may have the potential to contribute to something much more remarkable than traditional candidates is the first step towards rejuvenating your hiring process and taking your organization to the next level.

Investing in unconventional talent can lead to non-convergent thinking in an organization. A mix of traditional and non-traditional candidates brings in the diversity an organization requires. And Diversity is often known to lead to more significant innovation and performance. People who share different knowledge and experiences tend to agree faster.

Letting go of the notion that there is one ideal candidate type and exploring distinct waters can open your hiring horizon, creating opportunities for candidates who prove their potential beyond pedigree. Remember, most skills can be taught on the job; core capabilities and the desire to learn are what matter the most.

Even top companies like Google and Amazon have moved past their notion of hiring based on qualifications alone and have started concentrating more on potential.

With jobs and job skill requirements changing so rapidly in today’s labour market, you will not find an ideal candidate with an ideal set of skills, simply because the role that is relevant today may be irrelevant tomorrow.

Steps to Identifying Your Need for a Non-Traditional Candidate

Understand your preferences well before you start scouring. Here are a few questions that can guide you to assess your organization’s hiring targets-

• What qualities does your team need?
• Ratio of leaders that are analytical vs instinctive; passive vs direct; research driven vs action driven?
• What are the futuristic skills that the team members are lacking?
• What is missing in our leader-employee relationship mix that can drive better outcomes?

Steps to Assess the Potential of a Non-Traditional Candidate

1. Test their problem-solving skills!

Ask them how they contributed to a solution when faced with a problem. Some candidates may have outstanding responsibility towards solving problems when posed with demanding situations.

2. Understand their degree of desire to learn new skills/ put in extra efforts

Posing a question “When was the last time you lost track of time? What were you doing during that period? can unveil their intellectual curiosity and can help you understand their reason for motivation. If they are investing their time and money to upskill themselves, that is a sign indicating their interest to perform beyond their potential.

3. See if they attempt to stand out through their applications

If the candidate has tried to create connections, identify the company’s need and ideology behind developing solutions for the same, and is going beyond to show his interest in working for your company, that is your cue of having discovered a top performer.

4. Test their self-awareness and teamwork capabilities

Ask about a project they have been proud of working closely with their colleagues. A candidate’s ability to take charge, be self-aware and work with people to produce desired results says a lot about their potential.

5. Test their authenticity

A non-traditional candidate knows they do not fit the box perfectly. But a top-performing, non-traditional candidate will not fake his uniqueness. Instead, he will embrace it and try to make a difference with his capabilities and illustrate how it could benefit your company.

Recruiting & Hiring Non-Traditional Candidates Can Boost Productivity?

• Bring a unique perspective

A subconscious for hiring people with similar backgrounds, areas of education, and experience comes naturally to most hiring managers. But it does not necessarily mean that they are the right fit. Someone who may project a different attitude may have a valuable contribution as they bring in a new, unique perspective.

•  Higher competitiveness and agility

An organization buzzing with like-minded and similar-paced workforce starts to get stagnant over time because everyone is comfortable running circles with their set duties and routines. Over time this can lead to delayed decision-making and a less competitive environment. That is your sign to hire differently. A diverse/ non-traditional candidate can make the environment lively, competitive, and agile.

Maurer provided an example of a classic success of a non-traditional hire of a former academic researcher in neuroscience, Vay Cao, who was hired for a sales manager position at a neurotechnology company. He obviously lacked sales experience, but the brilliant researcher tapped into tenacity, persistence and openness to new challenges to garner the new role.

• Boost profits

Studies have shown that diverse teams bring in more profits and revenues for their companies. Companies that invoke a flexible hiring process eliminating bias based on gender, age and disability can hire better candidates. When you are not fixated on hiring an Ivy League candidate, instead focus on recruiting candidates from different social classes but with the right skills you open to a whole new candidate pool that is immensely talented with untapped potential.

• Ease of connecting with customers from diverse backgrounds

Your customers are diverse. You should be as well. For example, if you own a restaurant, and are looking to increase your marketing capabilities to make your restaurant stand out, you do not have to necessarily hire someone with a degree in marketing. A marketer with prior industry experience in a different field may be able to connect with customers better as they have played the field before and are aware of the customer pain points, and better address it than someone with a higher qualification on paper.

• Opening up the talent pool & saving costs

The perfect-fit candidate will be highly sought after by many companies, so they are going to negotiate a hard bargain with you to outcompete other offers, which can cost you money. On the other hand, when you move cross off traditional requirements, and move past the pedigree hiring you can tap into a talented pool of non-traditional candidates who will strive to deliver the best results.

A final word

Taking a chance on hiring a non-traditional candidate can be a rewarding move for your organization. Their perseverance, hard work, passion, ingenuity, creativity, problem-solving skills, great people skills, and/or the ability to learn quickly can pay off in a big way for your entire organization.

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