The Recruitment Dilemma – Great Skills vs. The Right Candidate

"Often the best solution to a management problem is the right person."

- Edwin Booz

Sounds apt, doesn’t it? But what exactly defines the “right person”? Or to be more precise, what exactly defines the “right person for the right job”? Recruiters around the world face this perplexing question everyday when hunting for candidates to match job requirements.

Armed with a standardized job description that most probably was cut and pasted from the thousands available online, headhunters make a beeline for the web or for their telephones to put together a list of suitable candidates. What should they be looking for? Great skills, relevant on-the-job experience, behavioral aspects, job history…the list can go on.

One of the most difficult situations faced by recruitment specialists or even organizations is when they come across candidates who are just right, but their skill sets aren’t exact what the job demands.

These candidates with their go-getter attitudes, pleasant demeanors, honest and forthright mindsets and willingness to grow with the organization can create quite an impression. In this case what do they do? Let go of such great candidates in favor of someone with better skills? But, skills can also be picked up and polished on the job, right?

Ambitious hiring has proven to be the bane of many HR managers and recruitment specialists. In a bid to meet the on-boarding deadline or to ensure the candidate fits the job-description to a T, they ignore some key aspects of analyzing a candidate’s profile.

Take Bob for example. Bob is an open source developer with particular expertise in PHP. He has worked on multiple large-scale projects and his skill levels are great. When he was looking for his next opportunity, Steve, a recruitment specialist got in touch with him for a PHP developer requirement. Bob’s skills matched the job description and Steve was happy with his catch. He ignored several other profiles of candidates with slightly lower skills levels including that of Anya, who had won multiple awards in her previous organization.

Bob was quickly on-boarded and started work. Pretty soon, the management started noticing problems with Bob’s attitude. While his work was great, he was pretty nonchalant and liked working as a lone wolf. He did not get along with his team, nor did he want to take up extra responsibilities. This caused much friction with his team and immediate superiors and the situation deteriorated to such as extent that the organization had to let Bob go. This brought them back to square one! Steve had to start looking for the right candidate again.

What we need to understand is that an organization’s ideal candidates are like a chimera…an illusion. They do not exist! One must always be ready to compromise and settle for the best available option. While saying this, it is important to note that extensive profiling and search should precede the final decision, so that once a candidate is chosen, all efforts are targeted towards assimilating him/her in the job environment.

Great skill-sets are a good-to-have quality, but a candidate with a great attitude, eagerness to learn, and who is open enough to take up new responsibilities will serve the organization well in the long run.

SkillMirror specializes in identifying such great talent that is a good fit for your organization and will work with you in the long run, ensuring personal growth and growth of the organization. Our research-driven approach tipped with cutting-edge technology helps us curate and analyze candidates using skill assessments and personal reviews. This way, when a candidate steps into your organization, he already feels at home. For information on SkillMirror manpower solutions, log on to www.skillmirror.com.