I can’t recall a time when our leaders said we have no problems acquiring the talent necessary to deliver our brand promises. Rather, good people are always hard to find, and on-going changes in generational preferences and talent development make it even harder.
One solution which might seem expensive but really isn’t is proactive hiring. Spending resources on narrowing down what type of a person is the candidate you’re looking for, in addition to their technical skills, knowledge and experience, will make a meaningful difference in their retention, productivity and value-add.
Most of us continue to recruit for “objective” measures. The “right people”, those that lift the entire team and make a tangible difference in its spirit, have personality characteristics that are as important as their technical background. Who you are matters greatly, as we all know. Recruiting for the right personality addresses that variable.
Start by considering which personality attributes are needed for a particular job. For example, affinity to numbers and desire for precision are important in accounting jobs, but not so much in sales positions. An introvert is less likely to success in client-facing positions than an extrovert. And so on. Ask yourself, what patters of thought, feelings and behaviors are present and evident in consistently high performers? Recruiting people who resemble your best performers meaningfully increases the likelihood of success.
Is the person you’re looking for a highly intelligent person or is that not a necessary component to their success? High or low on the persuasion scale? Assertive or not? Do they need to have thick skin and handle rejection well? How important is their ability to function well in a matrix reporting environment? To think strategically? To make solid tradeoffs between long- and short-term performance?
Once you identify the main attributes a successful recruit should possess, question yourself on your selection. Are all these important or optional, critical or just “nice to have?” And who do you know that effectively displays what you’re looking for?
Brainstorming with your team and the HR group you can develop a list of candidates you all know who might fit the bill. New names are likely to emerge. Contacting them regardless to their availability is a worthwhile effort for current and future recruitment. Much like prospective customers, prospective employees need to be nurtured, cultivated and eventually converted. The timing of their hiring should be determined by them, not by you, since they are nearly certain to add value to your entire team in short order. Having the right personality is at least as valuable as possessing the right skill-set, and its impact on success within and outside their department is far greater.
Within months, the word in your market will spread: your bank is looking for this type of people. Use your networking and attribute identification process to identify people that the typical executive search form won’t find. Consider which other industries deliver well on the specific value proposition you’re selling and look for candidates there. It can be so refreshing to bring people from other industries into our midst. They show us time and time again that skills and experience we consider sacrosanct aren’t always so.
As AI takes over non-value-add jobs, the differentiation people make in your customer experience and relationship management continues to grow. The need for the extra-edge top talent brings grows. Finding the right people starts with good – and different – recruiting, leveraging unconventional recruiting pools and prioritizing one’s personality first. Investing in hiring the next generations of winners who can make your brand come true is an excellent way to reinforce who you are and contribute to your earnings and customers’ stability.