How to Spot High Potential Candidates
Posted on 8th January 2025 at 10:58
Does hiring the right candidate for your role feel like looking for a needle in a haystack? Recruitment can be time-consuming and often the SME market doesn’t have time to look for the best candidate, even though high-potential candidates usually possess qualities that set them above the rest of the pool – but they can be hard to spot in a standard recruitment process.
By focussing on the transferable skills, personal traits and cultural fit you can make smarter more effective hiring decisions.
Read our top 3 tips below
1. Identify the transferable skills.
This is about the abilities that candidates have developed in one context that can be applied to your role. They can include things like problem-solving, project management and communication. For any SME candidate assess for a candidate’s adaptability in previous roles – will they be able to flex with the demands of your business? What questions can you ask them to identify when they have done this in the past?
2. Assess personal traits
Personal traits like resilience, curiosity, and a growth mindset are great predictors of long-term success for an SME. Ask them about areas where they may have failed before and what they learnt from these situations, or use personality assessments to gain deeper insights into the traits you are looking for.
3. Evaluate Cultural Fit
If you are a close-knit team, you want someone who will fit in with everyone else and reflect your values. Otherwise, they will seem like a fish out of water – however well they can do the job. Make sure you are clear on your values and question them on their values to see if they align. Ask them why they want to work for you and see what excites them about your business. Get other team members involved in the recruitment process to see whether there is potential for them to collaborate.
Make sure you are using a structured repeatable recruitment process to efficiently identify high-potential candidates. We can help you to secure top talent that will grow alongside your business, ensuring short- and long-term success. If you want any help and advice as to how you can continue to recruit for your business-critical roles at the moment without losing your momentum why not give us a call on 0116 2080246?
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