In a difficult job market for sourcing technical candidates, your company needs to widen its talent pool. Part of this approach includes considering underqualified candidates. Perhaps a candidate doesn’t have a college degree but loads of tangible experience? Maybe it’s someone fresh out of school awaiting their first professional opportunity?
Whatever the reason, is it time for staffing efforts to go beyond analyzing a résumé to see whether a candidate would make a difference for your organization? Let’s take a closer look at this issue with the goal of helping your company choose the right person.
Hiring The Right Candidate Remains an Imperfect Science
Despite all the effort spent parsing résumés, scoring candidates, and interviewing the best, making the right hire is still an imperfect process. Perhaps a supposedly perfect candidate with great skills and experience didn’t make a good fit with your team? This is a major reason to shake up your company’s hiring criteria and consider the underqualified.
A Major Reason Why Underqualified Candidates Warrant Attention
Many underqualified candidates end up being a great hire for one obvious reason. In these cases, they have something to prove and end up working extra hard to make a significant difference for their employers. John DiLullo, a technology CEO who employs this hiring technique, commented on his findings.
“When I reflect on a career of hiring, the candidates that always seemed to perform the best were rarely 100 percent qualified. Instead, it was individuals with lesser qualifications, but a burning desire to prove something to the world that made all the difference,” said DiLullo. He felt these underqualified professionals either needed a break or were determined to thrive in any new opportunity.
Finding Candidates With The Passion For Success
DiLullo feels the perfect candidate is someone who is 70 percent qualified and 30 percent terrified. This fear of missing out on a great opportunity for their career growth provides the passion to succeed when hired for a new position. Expect these chosen few to give the effort required to ensure their managers made the right choice.
In the end, simply widening the company’s job requirements for an open position provides a better opportunity to interview the underqualified. During these interviews, pay close attention to those with a passion for success. Also, work with your HR team to devise a few questions to better identify these passionate candidates.
If your company needs help building a great team, speak with the experts at Synerfac. As one of the top IT staffing agencies on the East Coast, we provide great candidates able to succeed for you. Schedule some time with us soon.