If you’re an employer, you’re probably familiar with the concept of the “perfect candidate.” Regardless of the reason why you’re trying to fill this vacant position – you expect to find someone that is a jack of all trades and has plenty of experience to satisfy the job description’s hefty list of responsibilities and qualifications.
Unfortunately, this isn’t very realistic. Let’s compare hiring to the dating world. We might have these idealistic expectations of who “the one” is – yet how do we know if we’ve never met them before? How do we know this person is within reach – or even exists? Now, back to hiring. Does this mean that we can’t find great candidates? Of course not! This just means that we have to revisit our expectations prior to making a final decision on certain candidates’ qualifications.
By no means necessary should you lower your standards, in fact, you should refine them. A candidate that has the potential to be a great fit for your team might be overwhelmed or even intimidated by the idea of having to master numerous programs and skills in order to satisfy the job description. Luckily, you can still find the ideal candidate for the role you’re hiring for, and here’s how.
Assess What You Have
Assess the skills, qualifications, and characteristics that all of your top performers have. Do they have any that overlap? This is a great place to start. In fact, these qualities you’ve highlighted are going to be great baselines to measure the eligibility of candidates applying for the job. If certain candidates do not have these key qualities, they should be excluded from your hiring efforts.
Give Room to Learn
Now – let’s say you find a great candidate but they don’t have all the desired skills. What about room for improvement? Will the candidate have the opportunity to learn these skills if you give them the opportunity to? Think about it – why wouldn’t you want an individual that takes the initiative to learn if it leverages their chances of joining your team? And in the future, there might be a different set of requirements and skillsets to satisfy this role. So in a way, many job descriptions in the future will eventually evolve. It’s only fair to give candidates an opportunity to prove themselves.
Company Culture Compatibility
Often overlooked – you want to be sure that the ideal candidate will mesh with your team. What good is an all-star potential employee if they won’t be able to fully connect with the company? Their curiosity and enthusiasm in working with your team are essential. Be mindful of the questions they ask, and be sure to assess if they will be the right fit in addition to their skillset.
As mentioned before, if these candidates for example are not super familiar with certain software or programs, see if they have the dedication to go the extra mile and learn. How about your all-star employees? Were they always “perfect” or did they learn along the way? Keep this all in mind while you screen candidates to find a match.
And besides, if that “perfect candidate” does exist, what makes you so certain that they would apply for your job? You can spend endless hours trying to find the perfect candidate, but may never find them. At the end of the day, you need a self-starter, a person that you can depend on to get things done. So aim for the ideal – not perfection. You might be surprised by the abundance of overlooked potential!